The Hand And The Eye
by Athena02
Summary: A Madman, a plan, and a powerful object. Add Lara in, and someone's going to get hurt.


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The Hand and The Eye

By Athena02

Disclaimer: Tomb Raider, Lara Croft, her image and likeness are trademark and copyright © of EIDOS Interactive and Core Design. Hillary and Bryce are property of Paramount. No infringement to these copyrights is intended. 

This story is rated PG-13 for scenes of graphic violence. 

Tiny Note: I used characters from the movie simply because I needed Bryce and thought it would be awkward to blend him and Winston. (Sorry Winston!) Don't flame me because I used him and Hillary (and Shugrave from the novelization). Just enjoy the story. 

Feedback tremendously treasured at: athena_o2@hotmail.com ('o' as in the letter, not the number)

~~~~~

Abdullah-Muhammed Azid sighed, looking up from the half-buried clay tablet he was brushing grit from to squint at the sun high up in the sky. Definitely time for a break, he mused. 

Wiping the sweat and dirt from his face with a handkerchief, he stood slowly, feeling his back protest at the movement. Taking a sip from the canteen of water at his belt, he surveyed the half-excavated ruins around him.

He was digging in the remnants of a Babylonian marketplace, dating back to about 1740 BC, nearly twenty years after the ascent of the great king Hammurabi. The town, then known as Amiet, was small, even though it was scarcely thirty miles south of the ruins of Babylon, the former capital. Its size made little difference to the small group of archeologists, though, intent on studying the more rural culture of that ancient empire. 

Turning slightly and squinting, Azid could just make out the tiny figures of the rest of the group, busy excavating an area two hundred yards to his right and slightly downhill. The site looked like a promising location for Amiet's small temple, a center of ancient society, and the group was eager to try and unearth it. A few tablets--covered with cuneiform writing--they'd recovered a few weeks ago mentioned religious treasures stored within that temple, and, if it had remained untouched, promised to make quite a find.

Sighing as his back again protested, Azid squatted back down, returning to his brushing. If the temple were indeed under there, it would take the undermanned group years to fully excavate and catalogue it. Being an archaeologist in the middle of Iraq-- nearly eighty miles south of Baghdad itself—certainly had its drawbacks and dangers: not enough men or equipment, difficulties getting interested colleagues in, and having to explain things to passing army officers who distrusted the tiny group of European and Egyptian scholars. But they were allowed to continue on with their work, which was more than good enough for Azid.

Focused on his work, his back to his companions, Azid didn't see the two covered trucks come rattling down the rough path to the site, columns of dust flying up from underneath their tires like smoke signals. Behind him, the other archeologists set down their tools, looking on warily as the trucks ground to a halt next to the tents set up at the foot of the hill.

Everything was still for a minute, quiet save for the soft sound of Azid humming to himself, when the chattering sound of automatic gunfire and screaming rent the air.

Bolting upright, Azid felt his heart freeze as he saw men dressed like commandos and armed with assault rifles running through the camp, chasing down the few workmen and archeologists who weren't already lying on the ground, dead or dying in pools of their own blood.

Heart slamming in his chest, Azid dropped to the ground, praying that none of the commandos had seen him. Inching backwards, his face pressed into the dust, he listened helplessly as the distant screams grew fewer, stopping after a final burst of gunfire. A few seconds later, he could hear orders shouted, a few voices coming closer. Eyes wide with fear, he searched for a hiding place, one question echoing throughout his mind.

_Why?_

He was still asking that question as a pair of commandos walked over the rise, guns held at the ready.

~~~~~

A shrill buzzer cut through the still air, echoing off the concrete walls of the enclosure and triggering a flurry of activity.

Within seconds a burly man, his face twisted into a rictus of malice, spun out from his hiding place behind the cinderblock wall, taking up a firing stance in the doorway with a business-like assault rifle held to his shoulder. Sighting along the long barrel, he found his target, aiming up as his finger tightened on the trigger. 

The same instant, his target dropped from the ceiling, coming to a halt twenty feet from the concrete floor, hanging upside down from the end of a black nylon rope. 

Taking only milliseconds to center her target, Lara Croft cleanly pulled the triggers of the twin Beretta 9mm 92 FS Inox handguns in her gloved hands. The man spun around as the bullets hit him square in the chest, dropping him before he could get off a shot.

Lara didn't have any time to celebrate though, as another man leapt through the doorway, while still another attacker, wearing a ski mask and wielding a shotgun, took aim from a second-story window. She squeezed off another volley, dropping both men, but still more enemies rose up in their stead.

Muzzle flashes from the Berettas illuminated her face, adding a gleam to her dark brown eyes as they flicked from target to target. Her arcing eyebrows were slightly knit in concentration, full lips bent upward at the corners in the barest ghost of a smile. A few errant strands of hair had come loose from the single glossy chestnut plait that dangled towards the ground, brushing against her aristocratic cheekbones. The well-defined muscles of her arms stood out as she fired the last rounds in the clips, ejecting the magazines with a smooth, fluid motion. Her hands, still holding the weapons, flew to her waist, where fresh clips rested, close to the holsters belted to both her hips and thighs.

In front of her, an M-16A2, a shotgun, and an Uzi zeroed in on the heart beating underneath her black tank top, one second away from sending a hail of lead tearing through it. 

Slamming the fresh magazines in, she snapped her weapons up, dropping two of the targets before they could fire, but the shotgun boomed the instant before its owner perished under Lara's fire. 

Lara's expression didn't change as she bent her ankle, letting a length of rope slide through the torso harness. She dropped rapidly, falling three feet closer to the floor before she bent her ankle back, leg muscles taut, coming to an abrupt halt as the rope tightened around her left combat boot. She'd moved just in time, narrowly escaping the beanbag that flew over her head with enough power to knock a man off his feet. As if that wasn't enough, she never stopped firing, bringing down another pair of attackers as she dropped.

She fired one last round, winging another man, before the buzzer sounded and he disappeared, the sound of gunfire echoing.

Hanging amidst a dispersing cloud of gunsmoke, Lara flicked the safeties to the Berettas on before slipping them back into their holsters. In another smooth motion, she flipped upright, lowering herself to the ground along the rope, trying to ignore Bryce's excited crowing in her right ear. If he kept it up at that volume, he was going to damage the headset. 

A low whistle of admiration came from the laptop set on a table against the concrete wall behind Lara. 

"I knew ya'd be impressed!"

Unhooking her torso harness from the rope, she walked over to the laptop, expended brass shells making hollow plinking sounds as she stepped through the area where they had fallen. Perching on the stool in front of the computer, she smiled wryly at the face of the middle-aged man on the screen as she took off her wireless headset. Let Bryce yell, just so long as she didn't have to listen to it.

"Excellent work, Ross. You've really outdone yourself." Her voice, cultured and articulate with a melodious British accent, betrayed a high-class upbringing that would have been impossible for the causal observer to discern. Especially if they'd been watching a moment ago. 

The man shrugged, deep lines appearing in the tanned skin at the corners of his bright blue eyes. "Nothin' too special, Lara. Jis' tweaked the rifling a lil' bit so your exit velocity's a bit faster and made it so's you can use the expanded clip; eleven rounds instead of the manufacturer's ten. Evened out the match weights on the front to compensate fer the added weight, so she's balanced the way ya like 'em. And they're silencer-capable, so if ya ever feel so inclined, ya can use 'em without wakin' up the Queen." Ross Durant exaggerated a wink. "'Cause ya sure wouldn't want Scotland Yard ta find out ya got _those_." 

Lara's smile was small, knowing that Durant was only half-joking. She was serious as she looked at the webcam hooked to the top of the laptop. "When can you make another pair?"

"Knew ya were gonna ask," the Texan gun maker drawled, grinning mischievously. "Gotta 'nother set all ready ta go."

"You know me too well," she said. "I'll wire you the money, as well as a little something extra for your initiative."

Durant grinned again. "Ya can keep yer money if ya get me the plans ta yer 'lil indoor shootin' range there. Those hollergraphic bad guys of yers'r really somethin'."

Lara smiled again. Ross Durant was an excellent gun maker, but an even better businessman. "You'll have to ask Bryce if he's willing to sell. He's rather possessive when it comes to his creations."

Durant laughed. "I'll do that. Ya take care now, Lara."

Lara nodded in acknowledgement. "You too, Ross." The Texan grinned, waving just before he ended the call, leaving the screen blank.

Fingers flying over the keyboard, Lara brought up the audio/video feed to the Tech Room. Bryce's face was framed on the screen, grinning wildly from ear to ear.

"C'mon, Lara, tell me that that wasn't just bloody _fantastic!"_ Her resident techhead could hardly contain his excitement.

Her voice was totally calm when she spoke; she'd never admit that she was quite pleased with Bryce's latest gadget. "Their reaction times are rather slow."

Bryce rolled his eyes. "Any faster and it'd be unrealistic." He threw up his hands in exasperation at her lack of enthusiasm. "Bugger, Lara! Fourteen projectors with simultaneous audio _and_ reactionary protocols! Do you have any idea how much I'd make if I sold this sort of thing to the army?! The basic codin' alone would have me-"

Lara looked up as Hillary entered the room, his nose wrinkling slightly at the metallic smell of gunpowder still in the air. She muted the laptop, leaving Bryce to rant soundlessly as the butler approached. 

"There's a Mr. Abdullah-Muhammed Azid just arrived to see you, Lady Croft." He glanced at the handguns holstered at Lara's side. "Shall I tell him you're otherwise occupied?"

Lara frowned, searching her memory for the unfamiliar name and coming up empty. "Did he say what he wanted?" she asked.

"No, ma'am. It seemed rather urgent, though."

Lara weighed her options. Trouble had a way of finding her, even from the most seemingly innocent of sources and especially by people showing up unexpected at her door. For a brief moment she considered telling Hillary to send this Mr. Azid on his way, but thought better of it. At the very least, she could see what the man wanted before she sent him packing. 

She sighed, sliding off of the stool. "Show him in while I change." 

"Very well," Hillary said, turning towards the door.

Lara's voice stopped him before he could take a step. "Oh, and Hillary…?"

He turned as Lara unbuckled the holsters from her hips and thighs. She deposited it, Berettas and all, in Hillary's hands, moving lithely through the door. "Put those with the others, would you?"

Hillary eyed the twin handguns. "Of course."

But Lara was already out the door, her mind focused on her unexpected visitor.

~~~~~

The middle-aged Egyptian man waiting in the drawing room stood the moment Lara appeared in the door, setting his teacup down on its saucer on the low mahogany table. 

"Mr. Azid. You wished to speak with me?" Lara had never been one to waste time on pleasantries. Her low-heeled boots barely made a sound as she crossed the floor tiles. She'd changed into a pair of black slacks and a gray, long-sleeved sweater that hugged her curves. Business attire, but still loose enough to allow her a quick getaway of she needed it. 

"Lady Croft," he said, clasping her hands in his own and bowing his head slightly in greeting. "I apologize for arriving uninvited, but the matter is quite urgent." His voice, tinged with the British-Arabic accent unique to Egypt, was slightly strained, betraying that urgency. He sat a moment after Lara did, his brown eyes locked onto her own. "There is no one else I feel I can turn to."

"And what matter is this, Mr. Azid?" she asked, crossing her legs, back resting against the carved wood of the chair.

"I was part of a small group of international archeologists studying Babylonian culture in Iraq. We had been digging for nearly eighteen months at the town of Amiet, with only mediocre success. We'd never been bothered much before, until nearly five days ago, just as we were about to begin excavating the town's temple, we were attacked."

Lara leaned forward a little, her interest piqued. Azid's hands, which had been clasped together on his knees, began twisting as he recounted the massacre.

"I hid beneath a tarp protecting a section of a house we had found, and waited until nightfall. By then, more trucks and commandos had arrived, and I managed to sneak aboard one of the covered supply trucks before it left in the morning. I jumped off at the nearest town and barely managed to get out of the country." His voice shook slightly with both anger and melancholy. "I've contacted the handful of my colleagues who stayed in Germany, but they told me to go to Interpol. Whatever good that will do my friends." His voice was bitter, eyes still holding Lara's intently. "I heard about you, and I knew I had to come to you immediately."

"I don't quite understand what you want me to do," Lara said.

Azid leaned forward. "The men there kept mentioning one of the treasures we thought might have been stored in the temple: the Eye of Hammurabi. Select Babylonian tablets describe the Eye as a medallion worn by King Hammurabi himself, during the golden age of the Babylonian Empire. Even if you were to disregard its historical value, it would be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. There is no other reason they would have attacked us." His eyes narrowed. "I want you to find the greedy criminals who killed my colleagues and take the Eye from them," he implored, eyes searching hers.

She considered her options for a moment, but the answer was clear. "I am sorry, Mr. Azid, for what has happened to you and the loss of your colleagues, but your associates in Germany are correct; this is a matter for Interpol." Her statement was completely sincere. As much as she detested murder, tracking killers and exacting revenge was not something she did. At least not something she wanted to make a business out of, anyway.

Azid tried again, but his voice was chilly. "If it's money you want, I have-"

Lara held up her hand, cutting him off sharply. "Mr. Azid, I am not a private detective, and I'm certainly not a bounty hunter." Her tone warned that she'd try not to take offense at his offer. 

She stood gracefully, signaling that their meeting was at an end. Azid's shoulders slumped in defeat before he stood up, following Lara as she led him from the room, through the cavernous Great Hall, and into the Entrance Hall.

"I sincerely wish you would reconsider…"

Crossing the length of the Entrance Hall, Lara opened the large main door, holding it open for her visitor. Hillary would've been appalled: Lady Croft showing her own visitors out.

"I will not." Her smile was cordial, yet firm as he stepped through the door. "I appreciate your faith in my capabilities, Mr. Azid, and am, again, sorry for what has happened."

"As am I," the Egyptian murmured, frowning as he turned. Lara closed the door behind him, listening as he got in his car, driving slowly away from the house along the gravel drive.

The moment she could no longer hear his car, Lara stepped back from the door with a sigh. She felt sympathetic to Mr. Azid's situation, but, unfortunately, theft and murder did happen on digs, especially ones in regions where foreigners weren't quite welcome.

Content not to be involved in the whole mess, Lara made her way upstairs.

~~~~~

If Croft Manor seemed expansive during the daytime, it was even more so at night, with its large halls and colonnades shrouded in silent darkness. The darkness wrapped around the fine furniture, clinging to the walls and corners like some sort of hellish ivy. It hid, oppressively still, deep in the crevasses of the house—every gap, niche, and vent.

Except for in the master bedroom fireplace, where a man-shaped shadow seemingly spawned from its black maw, creeping quietly over the floor, making a beeline for the sleeping figure in the bed.

With the faintest whisper of cloth, the intruder reached to his waist, pulling out a matte black pistol, the long cylinder of a silencer attached to its muzzle. Reaching the bed, he leaned over the unconscious woman, slowly bringing the weapon to bear so that the end of its barrel would be bare inches from the underside of her jaw. 

Lara's eyes snapped open, already focused on the man leaning over her. She moved lightning-fast, her left hand coming up to grip the wrist of the intruder's gun hand, pulling the barrel away from her and pinning it to the mattress, while her right grabbed the wicked-looking knife she kept hidden on the bedside table, pressing the blade against the man's throat. Adrenaline flooded her veins as they found themselves locked together, her knife to his jugular and his pistol uncomfortably close to her head.

"What are you doing in my house?" Lara hissed, noticeably tightening her grip on the knife, making sure that he felt the steel in the gap between his sweater and ski mask.

"Delivering a message." The man's voice was a low rasp, his own accent almost mirroring her own. British then, but that didn't mean much.

"I don't want to hear it," she growled.

Lara suddenly felt something metallic and very sharp press firmly against the bit of exposed skin of her belly where her cotton pajama top had pulled up. "You'll have to," the man said. She glanced down for the briefest second, catching sight of the short, thin dagger, its point lying against her navel. One tiny movement, and it would be buried in her gut; she'd probably bleed to death in less than fifteen minutes.

She didn't say anything, not daring to move yet not loosening her grip on the knife or the man's wrist. 

Certain he had her attention, the man spoke in harsh whisper. "Forget all about the Eye. If you try to pursue it, you'll end up dead." Lara could see a smile blossom under the man's ski mask as he pressed down on the dagger, a hairsbreadth from cutting into her skin like butter. "Just like your friend, Mr. Azid, did tonight." Moving suddenly, he jerked the dagger away, waving it menacingly in front of her nose.

She took that moment to strike.

Swinging her legs up, she drove her right knee into the intruder's ribs, sending him sprawling to the floor. He scrambled to his feet, bringing the pistol to bear.

Lara used her momentum to flip out of the bed, soundly cuffing the man on the temple with the butt of the knife. He groaned, stumbling backwards before regaining his balance, at which point he turned tail, sprinting through the open bedroom door and into the hallway. She immediately leaped to pursue, coming through the doorway just in time to see him jump over the stone banisters overlooking the Great Hall. It was a notable distance to the marble below, and he hit the ground painfully hard, getting to his feet with a limp before making a break for the Entrance Hall. Catching sight of Lara on the story above, he fired his pistol, the silencer hissing.

She ducked just in time to avoid the rounds, chips of stone spraying her as they hit the banister. She popped up again just as he fired a pair of bullets, destroying the lock in the heavy oak front door. Alarms immediately started screaming throughout the house, and two bulletproof Plexiglas panels began sliding out of the walls to the archway connecting the two Halls, a few seconds from cutting Lara off from the intruder.

Gritting her teeth, she vaulted over the banister, landing only somewhat less jarringly than the man, her bare feet stinging. Ahead of her, the intruder hauled one of the broken doors open, fairly throwing himself out into the night air. Sprinting over the expanse of stone flooring, Lara had to tuck and roll through the closing gap between the thick Plexiglas panels, barely making it before they slammed together. She followed through with her roll, springing to her feet and into the doorway. A trio of silenced rounds forced her to skid to a halt, taking cover behind the doorframe. She peered around the edge, catching sight of the man diving into a waiting black van just as the barrel of an automatic rifle stuck through the driver's window. 

Lara had just enough time to duck behind the wall before the gunman opened fire, stone chips and oak splinters flying as the bullets tore into the entrance of her home. She gritted her teeth in anger and disappointment as the van peeled away, the driver still firing haphazardly, ceasing just before he turned off of the long drive, and onto the main road, disappearing from sight.

A muffled knocking sound—someone tapping on the Plexiglas panels—spun Lara around, the knife she still held scintillating in her hands as she flipped it around, poised to send it flying through the air.

Hillary's eyes widened in fear, even though he was behind the bulletproof panel, a .22 caliber rifle cradled in his hands. Lara snarled in frustration, whirling around to plant the knife into the solid oak door, burying the point two inches into the bullet-riddled wood. 

Her heart hardened with a fierce resolve as a handful of stonework crumbled from the wall, fragmenting by her feet. Someone didn't want her involved, would kill her in order to get her to stay away from the Eye of Hammurabi.

She spun on her heel, intent on making herself the biggest, deadliest, most intrusive pain in the arse that she could.

~~~~~

Jamal Asef kicked the small rock in his path, watching disinterestedly as it skittered away from him, clanging off of a metal equipment container.

A few more steps brought him even with a parked excavator, its bucket resting on the ground like the knuckles of a weary monster. Looking around, Asef's eyes skated over the shadows formed by the scattered piles of equipment and supplies, searching for anything out of place. Finding nothing—not that he thought he would—he turned around, heading back the way he had come, battered AK-47 drooping in his grasp.

He hated guard duty, but it paid. Particularly well on this job, in fact. Yet guarding piles of crates and digging equipment was far from exciting.

His foot was poised to kick another pebble when a small noise, almost like a quiet footstep on the rocky ground, made him stop. Whirling around, eyes and ears wide, he brought the muzzle of his weapon up. Pointing the barrel at the wall of blackness barely ten meters to his left, he strained to catch any sign of an intruder.

Only the quiet stillness of the desert night met his senses.

Grumbling, his shoulders slumped as he resumed his loop, cursing himself for imagining things. Taking his bored frustration out on another pebble, he moved off between another stack of crates, his back to the outer perimeter. 

Which was why he wasn't able to see a woman slowly stand from behind a stack of crates, matching handguns held out in front of her. She took a second to look around, making sure that no one was nearby, before darting behind another stack of crates, smoothly melting into the dark shadow it cast. Another heartbeat, and she leapt behind a cluster of fuel drums, silently moving over the packed earth, single braid writhing sinuously behind her like the tail of a stalking panther.

Stealing from pile to pile, hiding in the shadows, she made her way towards the center of the brightly lit camp, escaping attention almost as if she had never been.

~~~~~

Crouched behind the outermost pile of crates in the supply dump, Lara waited, listening for any sign of an approaching guard. Her heart skipped in her chest, riding a wave of adrenaline, the sound of her own breath loud in her ears. The camp, set up amidst the ruins of Amiet, was quiet save for the distant purr of generators and the buzzing of the high-powered halogen lights scattered around the area.

Lara felt a tiny, wry grin briefly touch her lips. The place was lit up like an airport runway, as incongruous as a neon-lit billboard in the dark of the empty desert. Visible for miles, it had guided her in like a homing beacon, her GPS unit pointless, as she drove over the sand. 

She had parked her battered jeep--purchased for a ridiculously high amount near the Saudi border—behind a low dune a little over a mile away. She'd continued on foot, carefully surveying the camp through nightvision goggles as she approached.

It was set up in a rough ellipse, the now-excavated temple in the center. The supply dump took up one end of the ellipse, and a cluster of about a dozen medium-sized tents took up the other, behind the temple. The temple itself wasn't visible, only a tunnel leading down into the underground structure. Its entrance was unguarded; whoever was digging here was either confident in the perimeter security or more concerned about any passing locals stealing supplies than people trying to gain access to the temple.

__

Their mistake, Lara mused, spurring herself into action. 

She sprinted across the length of open ground to the tunnel's mouth, all-too aware of how exposed she was, clearly illuminated beneath the halogen lights. Crouching next to the mouth of the tunnel, she looked around, relieved to see that no one had seen her. Peering down into the blackness of the tunnel, she took a breath before jumping in, guns held out at the ready. 

She landed about eight feet below the surface, eyes searching the gloom for any sign of trouble. The tunnel itself wasn't very large, only about ten feet wide and recently hewn from the rock. It was completely dark, the pool of illumination from the lights above scarcely reaching beyond the toes of her boots. Holstering one of the Berettas, she reached into her backpack, cracking a glowstick and holding it out in front of her as she started down the tunnel, moving deeper into the earth.

A small part of her idly wondered at the temple's location. The Babylonians were infamous for their ziggurats; impressive step-pyramids built within religious complexes. The biggest, at seven stories, was in Babylon itself, but smaller ones were far more common. She'd never really heard of any underground temples, but she didn't dismiss the possibility. Ahead of her, the tunnel took an abrupt, ninety-degree turn to the right. Carefully moving so that she gradually exposed the tunnel in front of her, Lara knew she was getting close to the temple as soon as she saw the walls.

The glowstick's faint green light cast an eerie glow on the life-size friezes of Babylonian men and animals carved into the rock. Scenes from battles, bearded men with hard eyes carrying swords and spears, lined her path, their eyes seemingly tracking her as she walked with the glowstick. Up ahead, Lara could see a strong light through the end of the tunnel, revealing even more detailed stonework in the temple itself. 

Moving cautiously, wary of both boobytraps and guards, she stepped out of the tunnel, exchanging the glowstick for her holstered weapon as she scrutinized the layout of the temple around her, lit up by the spotlight the excavators had left running.

As far as temples went, this one was nothing like the ones she had been in before. Simple in design, it was nothing more than a large, square, room, about half as big as a football pitch and a little over thirty feet high. Cut from of the surface rock, the walls were covered in friezes similar to the ones she had just seen, vertical lines of cuneiform writing scattered amongst the images. A block of stone, waist-high and as long as a man, dominated the exact center of the room; it was, quite obviously, an altar. Busts of Marduk, the chief Babylonian deity, lurked in the four corners of the room's ceiling. Looking almost like llama-dragon hybrids, the visages' empty eye sockets leered menacingly at Lara, as if angry at her intrusion into their domain.

Long used to being glared at by countless gods, deities, spirits, demons, and others, Lara ignored their lifeless gaze, focusing on the door chiseled into the wall directly opposite from her, on the other side of the altar. Still watchful for traps, she crossed the length of the room. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that dirt was still caked in the cracks and depressions of the friezes: whoever had excavated this temple had obviously done a rush job, intent on getting through the room rather than investigating its archeological wealth. 

Entering the door, Lara found herself in a hallway almost identical to the one she had just come from, the walls covered with images and writing. Cracking another glowstick as she left the last bit of light from the first room behind, she forged ahead, eyes and ears straining, hoping to catch the smallest sound or clue that might show her where the Eye was hidden. Or if a guard with an AK-47 waited around the next corner. 

Barely twenty feet into the corridor, she drew even with two doors, one to each side of her. Still moving carefully, she inspected each one, mildly disappointed when it turned out they were nothing more than small, empty, plain rooms. Devoid of even decorative carvings—much less hidden doorways—they were probably the living quarters for the temple's clergy and staff. An additional twenty feet down the main corridor brought her to another ninety-degree bend, this time to the left. She followed it, inspecting four more rooms—identical to their predecessors—as she made her way down the long passage. 

Just when she had begun to wonder how extensive the underground complex was, the dying light of the glowstick fell on another doorway directly in front of her. A thick slab of rock blocked half of the corridor, making the entrance slightly wider than Lara herself. Wood two-by-fours were wedged between the rock and the wall, keeping the door open. 

Lara could count the number of times someone had paved the way into a tomb for her on less than one hand. _How considerate_, she thought, wending her way past the impromptu supports. A few more silent steps and she stood within the heart of the temple.

Smaller than, yet identical to, the main room she had first entered, this was the holy of holies, the _cella_, of the temple complex. She spared a glance for its centerpiece, the serpentine statue of Marduk staring out from his special niche in the wall farthest from her. A line of four metal, coffin-like trunks, the kind people usually shipped fragile yet valuable items in, were stacked along the length of the room. Abandoning the glowstick for the Maglite in her pack, she searched the room for any surveillance gear or alarms. She wasn't really surprised when she didn't find any; the security here was fairly non-existent. Almost alarmingly so, she thought, not letting her guard down for an instant. 

She made a beeline for Marduk's statue, figuring that, as the most important place in the temple, the Eye of Hammurabi should be nearby. A close examination of the statue, its pedestal, and the niche it rested in revealed that she was only half right.

A shallow, circular depression was carved into the statue's base. It was free of the fine layer of dust and grit that covered everything else, proof that something had been recently removed from its resting place. Lara would've bet her entire car collection that the missing item was the Eye. Which only meant that she would have to look a bit harder for it. Assuming it was still around. She chose not to concern herself with that last thought, moving to the second most obvious place: the crates against the opposite wall. 

The trunks had heavy built-in locks, nearly impossible to pick. Lara grasped the twin handles set in the closest trunk's front panel and twisted, grinning slightly as the bolts slid back easily. Unlocked.

__

Par for the course.

Lifting the heavy lid, Lara found herself staring at neatly arranged surveyor's equipment. No Eye, no artifacts. She was just about to close the lid when her eyes fell on a small strip of metal attached to the case of a laser sight. Picking up the piece of equipment, she peered at the small letters stamped onto the metal:

Property of TMK Engineering Corp.

A small line of Arabic characters spelled out the same message below the English. She set the laser sight back into its recess in the trunk's foam padding, glancing at the other equipment in the trunk. Each had the same metal strip, with the same message, on it.

Closing the lid to the trunk, she moved onto the next, which was also unlocked. It was full of diamond-edged cutting blades, saws, and drill bits: vital—and expensive—masonry equipment. The next trunk held an ultrasound machine, capable of 'seeing' through rock by sending out ultrasound waves and analyzing the impulses as they bounced off of objects. Like the laser sight, it was marked with a metal strip.

The fourth trunk, unlocked like the others, held a single metal box, nestled ominously in the center of the foam padding. Lara felt a dull tingle of excitement spread through her body, certain that this was what she wanted. 

Removing the box from the trunk, she studied the lock on its front. Unlike the trunks, this box was secure, sealed up tight. For a moment Lara considered using one of the diamond-bladed saws in the second crate to cut it open, but decided against it; the noise would definitely give her away, no matter how far away the guards might be. The hard way, then.

Twenty tense minutes later, the last tumbler gave way under her set of burglar's skeleton keys with a faint click. Looking towards the doorway to make sure no one had been alerted by the tiny noise, Lara opened the box.

The dull tingle returned as her eyes came to rest on the Eye, glittering in its bed of foam.

A medallion roughly the size of her palm and about a centimeter and a half thick, the Eye of Hammurabi was made entirely from gold. A round, dark red jewel lay in the center of the medallion, gleaming dully like a distant star. Smaller chips of other precious gems circled the outer rim of the Eye, and four diamond-shaped chips of emeralds were set into the medallion, opposite to each other like points on a compass. Tiny cuneiform characters spiraled around the center gem, and Lara was filled with the desire to know what they said. Unfortunately, she was at a loss on how to read it; it would have to wait until she got back to England. A little gold ring was attached to the top, its chain—if there ever was one—removed.

Ripping her eyes away from the Eye, she closed the box, slipping it into her pack. With a last glance at Marduk, she quickly exited the cella, Berettas leading the way.

She'd barely gotten five feet beyond the half-open stone slab when an alarm started wailing on the surface, its shrieking echoing down to her through the tunnel labyrinth.

Letting out a brief curse, she broke into a frantic sprint. 

She had just rounded the closest bend, fairly skidding around the corner and dashing into the larger room when the first guard ran out of the entrance tunnel on the opposite side of the room. His eyes widened for a second in surprise, then narrowed as he snapped his automatic rifle up.

Unlike him, Lara didn't hesitate, dropping him with a pair of rounds from the Berettas, already taking aim at his companions behind him as he fell to the floor like a sack of concrete. Then stone chips and bullets started flying, everything coming far too close for Lara's comfort as she crouched low. Keeping the altar between her and the guards, she hurried back into the dark hallway behind her, a brief plan forming in her head. Popping up occasionally to lay down a series of covering shots, she retreated back the way she had come, gritting her teeth at the sound of voices and return fire coming closer with each passing second. 

With one last volley she ducked into the empty room on her right, cloaking herself in the utter darkness. She reloaded quickly, before her pursuers were close enough to hear. Then she crouched, pressing herself against the wall and listening as the footsteps grew closer…

…and passed by, clomping around the bend and down the corridor, too caught up in the pursuit to check the side chambers.

Releasing a breath she hadn't realized she was holding, Lara raced back into the corridor, not wanting to waste any second of the lead she might've gained. She burst into the altar room, crossing it in seconds and entering the entrance tunnel. Elaborate friezes whipped by her in a blur, the pale glow of the halogen lights above becoming brighter, escape dangling in front of her nose as she used her momentum to leap up, fingers grasping the lip of the tunnel's entrance. Toes digging for purchase, she hauled herself up, muscles primed for another mad dash.

Right into the muzzles of a half-dozen guards positioned around the tunnel's entrance. Completely encircling her, their faces were grim, fingers tense on triggers.

For a moment Lara considered trying to fight her way out, but knew that she'd most likely get a bullet in her back before she had finished with the three guards in front of her.

Her stomach tightened into a horrible knot as she dropped her Berettas into the dust at her feet, her hands rising into the air. A second later, she heard someone take a step towards her, and then nothing as the rifle butt came down hard on the back of her skull, plunging her into black oblivion.

~~~~~

She awoke with a gasp, trying to bolt upright. Her limbs rose only a few inches, tied to whatever she was lying on with ropes at the wrists and ankles, spread-eagled. She pulled against the ropes, trying to at least loosen them, but the knots didn't budge, only cutting into the skin of her wrists further.

Her head throbbed with pain as she looked around, trying to get her bearings. It took her barely two seconds to realize that she was in the main temple room, lashed to the top of the altar. A tendril of worried fear snaked through her at that realization.

"Awake now, I see?" A voice, heavy with an Arabic accent.

Lara turned her head in the direction of the voice. A middle-eastern man, slightly taller than herself and no more than thirty-five, shaved head gleaming in the spotlight, was walking in her direction. He moved with a dangerous, catlike grace exceptional for his muscular build, his dark eyes glittering in a way that did nothing to calm the fear burbling in Lara's stomach. Her skin nearly crawled as he stood next to the altar, his eyes raking over her body, filled with a lust that had nothing to do with sex.

"My compliments, little thief, you almost got away with it." His voice was almost a purr. "But you didn't look for the homing device in the case; a shame that one mistake brought you to me." Lara knew that his politeness was only a façade; a wolf in sheep's clothing. His eyes searched hers, gaze intense. 

He walked slowly around her head, eyes never leaving hers as he stopped on the other side of the altar. "Tell me, little thief, why do you want the Eye? Is it for yourself, or are you working for someone?"

Lara didn't say anything, lips pressed together in a thin line, eyes cold as they met his.

The man's façade fell completely. If his gaze had been dangerously cold before, it was absolutely terrifying now. Lara turned her face into a mask, fighting back the feeling of fearful helplessness that was beginning to trickle through her.

The man produced a small knife, pointing it at her like an accusatory finger. "Who are you? I would tell me, thief, if I were you. Otherwise, you might have to lose a few fingers before I get the answers I want." He brought the knife down, tapping the flat of the blade against her knuckles in warning. 

Lara could see the man was not the type to hesitate. "Lindsay Cohen."

A small, frigid smile touched the man's face. "Very good, Miss Cohen. See how simple that was?" He resumed tapping the knife against her knuckles, tendons dancing under the skin of his thick forearms. "Now what about the rest of my answers?"

Lara's heart slammed in her chest, uncertain if the man was toying with her, aware of her real name. "I'm not working for anyone, I swear." She hoped she'd managed to sound convincingly terrified. Every false lead, no matter how tiny, she could feed this man might help her.

The man studied her, trying to read her expression, the knife still tapping against her fingers. A long, pressure-laden moment passed before he lifted the knife away from her, sheathing it somewhere on his person. He took something else out, glancing at it before holding it up for Lara to see. The Eye, gleaming in his hand.

"It is beautiful, Miss Cohen, isn't it? I can see why you would want it for yourself." Giving it one last look, he slipped it back into his pocket. Then he leaned over Lara, his eyes holding her own. "You may've tried to steal the Eye from me, but I am not so cruel as you would think." He straightened, waving his hand at the room's ceiling, urging Lara to look.

She did, and her heart sank at the sight of blocks of C4 explosives attached to the walls at strategic points, wired together in a relay. In one second, the detonation would tear the underground temple apart, crushing her to death and leaving nothing but a sunken, rubble-filled crater in the ground.

"You only have to wait an hour, my thief, while my colleagues and I leave the area, and then it will be quick." His eyes swept across the walls, the busts of Marduk in the upper corners. "A most fitting place to die, Miss Cohen."

With that he turned away from Lara, exiting her limited field of vision. A moment later the spotlight died, plunging her, once again, into darkness as the man's footsteps disappeared down the entrance tunnel.

She immediately began twisting and squirming, trying to escape her bonds. It was an exercise in futility; all she did was rub her wrists so raw they began to bleed. She lay still, catching her breath, pushing the burning sensation in her wrists to the back of her mind.

The next time she moved, she did so with purpose. Stretching the rope taut, leg muscles screaming with the effort, she was just able to scrape the side of her left boot against the edge of the altar, the side buckles coming undone with a metallic rasp. Sliding her foot out of the boot and free of the rope, she used her toes to undo the buckles of the other boot. Her right foot brushed against the scaled-down combat knife she kept sheathed inside the boot, carefully drawing it out. 

She began stretching and twisting her body, using her feet to push the knife up the altar, reaching the limit of her flexibility when it was just about even with her waist. Twisting onto her side, chafed wrists bursting into fresh waves of flame as the ropes tightened against them, she pushed the blade with her knee until it was just within reach of her right hand. Grabbing it, she painfully bent her wrist until the sharp edge touched the rope, using her fingers to move it back and forth, tediously sawing through the fibers.

Precious minutes passed, the sense of urgency pressing down on Lara like a weight, before she severed the rope. Her right hand free, she wasted no time in slicing the rope that held her left wrist, rolling off the altar. She had the presence of mind to grab her boots, shoving them back on. Taking a step, her foot bumped against something, making her pause before she bent down, her hands coming into contact with a familiar object.

Perhaps to taunt her, her would-be executioners had left her backpack resting close to the base of the altar. She scooped it up, examining the contents inside by touch. Everything was there, except for the Eye, even her Berettas. Slapping the guns into the holsters at her side, she bolted down the tunnel, finding her way through the darkness by memory and touch. There was no time to bother with glowsticks; she guessed she had maybe a little more than a half-hour left. Assuming the man with the shaved head hadn't been lying to her. Lara definitely wasn't going to stick around to see if he had been.

She was almost to the tunnel's exit—so very close—when she almost tripped as she ran over a pile of small pebbles, her hands coming out to press against a wall of loose dirt and gravel. She nearly screamed, a way to release the storm of dire rage that ripped through her. 

Instead, she groped around the pile of scree, and, finding a sizeable piece of flat rock, began digging upwards like a woman possessed. 

The weight of time, or her lack of it, increased tenfold, its presence thundering in sync with Lara's heartbeat as sweat ran down her face and back, the air around her becoming hot and stifling. Her wrists' shrieks of pain became a red-hot howl, joined by fingers scoured by the rock. The pain only inspired her to dig faster, flinging sand and rocks behind her at a frantic pace.

The weight was soon joined by a jarring siren echoing throughout her brain, her arms burning, as, in a shower of pebbles and dust, a tiny patch of sunlight appeared. No bigger than her fist, her heart still leapt once she saw the pale blue sky. 

The siren blared in her mind, thunderously urgent. Any moment now…

Furiously scraping with the rock, she widened the hole just enough to get her shoulder through. The fingers of her right hand curled, becoming talons that clutched at the hot desert soil above as she buried the toes of her boots in the pile in front of her, knees bent. She took a deep breath, holding it just before she pushed with her legs, straining against the mass of earth. For a moment it refused to budge. She pushed harder, quadriceps aching, and she began moving upward through the soil, head bursting to the surface like a diver coming up for air. Fighting against the weight of the sand pressing against her, she freed her left arm, pushing and twisting until the temple relinquished its final hold on her boot with the faint hiss of falling sand. Lara didn't stop to rest, running from the tunnel as fast as she could manage.

Scant seconds after she began running, the C4 blew, obliterating the temple in a towering plume of sand and a deafening roar, the shockwave slamming Lara to the ground. She could feel the ground tremble as the temple--and the earth above it—collapsed, adding to the cloud of debris that was pelting her with rocks and dirt. 

Minutes passed before the chain of destruction stopped, a cloud of fine dust still hanging in the air. Lara stood gingerly, looking back at the freshly-made crater, its edge barely fifteen feet from where she had been thrown to the ground. Then she glanced up at the sun, low in the eastern horizon; she would have to get moving.

Coated in dust and grit, exposed skin peppered with scrapes and cuts, and wrists still oozing, Lara set out in the direction of her jeep, shoulders squared. Behind her, all that was left of the ancient town of Amiet was a shallow crater in the vacant desert.

~~~~~

The washed-out yellow light from the city streets far below filtered through the windows of the large office, turning the room in to a collection of distorted shadows and half-illuminated shapes. It silhouetted the man standing quietly in front of the tall picture windows, his hands clasped behind his back as he studied the San Francisco skyline glittering in front of him. 

A very ominous scene, he mused, tiny tremors of barely contained excitement traveling through his body. He savored the sensation: he _felt_ ominous, poised on the brink of greatness. He'd waited so long for this moment.

Behind him, the office door opened with a faint click, the sound of footsteps barely audible on the carpet. Only one man moved that quietly, only he would dare intrude at a moment like this.

The man's hands came around from behind his back as he turned to face the newcomer, the city lights illuminating his features. He was noticeably middle-eastern, with high cheekbones and a thin, arcing nose. His slightly curly hair was as black as the night sky, the same color as his eyes in the darkness. His narrow face was clean-shaven, making him look more like a scholar than a businessman. He used that to his advantage, hiding his motives behind that harmless mask.

"Do you have it?" he asked, voice forceful, but with edges softened by a slight Arabic accent.

The other man stepped forward, the light making his shaved head gleam dully. "I came directly from the airport; I knew you would want it as soon as I arrived." He reached a meaty hand into a pocket of the lining of his overcoat, pulling something small from it.

With a reverent sigh, the smaller man stepped forward, gently taking the golden medallion from the other's grasp. He stared at it for a small eternity, lips moving soundlessly as his eyes traced over the small cuneiform symbols, their meaning resounding throughout his brain. The tiny gemstones sparkled in the scant light, reflecting in his gaze as his heart hammered in his chest. 

Still staring at the Eye of Hammurabi, his tone was steady, hiding the awe that he felt. "I never doubted you, Faraq. There is no other I would trust with this." If he was pleased with the praise, the bigger man didn't show it. "Were there any complications?"

"None of any consequence," the big man, Faraq, said. "A thief tried to steal it from the site. She didn't get very far before we caught her." His voice was laced with a trace of contempt.

The other man briefly looked up from the Eye. "A woman? One of the locals again?"

"No; she was British. Very talented, until we caught her." A tiny smile ghosted across Faraq's face at the memory of how easily the woman had cracked: he hadn't even had to draw any blood. Disappointingly easy, but the look on her face once she'd seen the C4 had made up for it. "Lindsay Cohen; a nobody, working for herself." He paused for a moment. "She would not have made it into the site if my security team had still been there, Omar."

The smaller man shrugged, fingers caressing the edge of the Eye. "They were needed elsewhere." With a last loving glance, he slipped the medallion into the pocket of his suit, smoothing the expensive material with his hands. "I trust you took care of her."

Faraq gave a small nod. "She was crushed and buried beneath the temple an hour after we left."

"Good. And the rest of our preparations?"

"A week more before everything is ready."

Omar turned back to the window, watching wisps of vapor pass by as the evening fog made its way into the Bay. "A short time to wait, considering how patient I have already been." Faraq didn't reply, standing motionless in the silence. After a moment, Omar turned his head, eyes falling on his associate. "I want you to return to Riyadh and oversee things there. I will join you in a few days."

Faraq nodded in understanding, turning on his heel and leaving the room as quietly as he had come. Behind him, Omar slipped a hand into his pocket, fingers running over the medallion, his thoughts distant.

~~~~~

Lara looked to her right, watching as the bright blue of the Mediterranean Sea sped by thousands of feet below. It looked warm, inviting, and for the briefest of seconds she entertained the thought of taking an impromptu holiday, soaking up the sun and surf.

Just as quickly she pushed the thought away. Not when there was work to be done.

Opening her laptop on the tray table in front of her, she waited while it booted up, feeling various cuts and bruises complain as she shifted in the first-class seat. The few scratches on her face had attracted some unwanted glances, but Lara's glare had taken care of that. Her bandaged wrists still burned slightly, hidden from sight beneath the cuffs of her blouse. In all, it wasn't so bad; compared to some of her other jaunts, this had been only a minor mishap.

She'd made it to her jeep, still parked where she'd left it, just before the desert sun reached its zenith. Sneaking into Saudi Arabia through a relatively unguarded area, she'd called in a favor. A few hours later the chopper appeared over the sands, landing briefly so she could board before skimming over to a small airport on the outskirts of Riyadh. She'd hopped into a waiting Lear there, making it to Cairo and her flight back home in record time. She'd definitely have to thank Shugrave next time she saw him.

Plugging into the modem port in the back of the seat in front of her, she logged into her e-mail. She opened a sizeable message from Bryce, eyes skimming over his brief message while the larger attachment downloaded:

__

Lara:

Here's the stuff you wanted. Wanted to give you a ring to see how you were doing and let you know what's going on here, but the charges are just awful. Knew you'd understand

Bryce

Lara pursed her lips as she logged off, recognizing the hidden meaning in Bryce's words. He knew she had her satellite phone, it was just a code. He'd stumbled onto something, a something too sensitive to discuss over cyberspace. Given the scrambling technology he'd proudly installed into her computer, it must be something pretty big.

Intrigued, she brought up the attachment, studying the dozens of pages of data Bryce had dug up. She finished it in time to switch flights in Italy, rereading it on the flight over Europe. By the time they began their approach on Gatwick and she had to shut down the laptop her thoughts were a jumble. The gears in her mind turned all the way through their arrival and baggage claim, chewing on the puzzle in front of her as she drove home in the middle of the night. 

From the information Bryce had sent her, TMK Engineering Corp. seemed entirely blameless. A global corporation with offices in San Francisco, London, and Riyadh, they designed custom industrial equipment, particularly oil drilling equipment and platforms. Their work on deep drilling platforms alone brought in billions annually. Everything they had found showed TMK as a successful and irreproachable corporation.

Thinking that perhaps TMK had been contracted to excavate the temple at Amiet after the attack by the guilty party, Lara had ordered Bryce to do a little hacking, coming up with the corporation's list of present clients. She hadn't expected to find any red flags on that list, and was far from disappointed. For all intents and purposes, they had reached a dead end.

She was tempted to abandon the search. After all, there wasn't anything in it for her, she'd just wanted to see what was going on, what was worth killing for. And now that she had, her curiosity had taken an even deeper hold. That, and she gotten the feeling that this was something she couldn't just walk away from. 

And, she reminded herself, there was still Bryce's other information. There was no way she was going to give up without all the facts.

Curiosity burned in her heart, alongside a tiny sense of relief, as she turned into her drive, the sight of Croft Manor growing larger in her windshield. As she drove to the garage, Lara noticed that the front of the house and the main gate had already been repaired; Hillary always did hate a mess, not to mention the contractors they used were probably used to having to patch up bullet holes around the place. 

Hillary was waiting for her, standing next to the glass cases that held her weaponry. He stepped forward as she parked the Land Rover, his lips quirked upwards in a smile.

"Lady Croft-" he began, the words freezing on his lips as soon she stepped from the car. His smile collapsed, replaced with a worried look as he caught sight of the small cut on her temple, the flash of bandages on her wrists.

Lara caught his concern. "You worry too much Hillary, I'm fine; just a few scratches." She stepped to the back of the car, unloading the few equipment-laden bags she had brought with her. She left them on the concrete floor, making a note to put it all away later, before making her way into the house, Hillary following behind her.

His voice was tinged with disapproving sarcasm. "I assume you were much too engaged in self-treatment to eat something? Or make any attempt to rest?"

"I ate something on the plane." She ignored his last question, making her way to the Tech Room and Bryce.

He saw right through the lie, but knew that Lara wasn't going to stop until she had at least talked to Bryce. "In that case, I'll be in the kitchen."

Lara nodded absentmindedly as he moved off, her eyes catching sight of Bryce, his back to her, surrounded by fifteen-odd LCD monitors. He didn't look up as she entered the Tech Room, furiously pounding on a keyboard in front of him. As she drew near, she could see paragraphs of text filling most of the monitors, and what looked like a bouncing audio spectrum analyzer on the display in front of him.

"What is that?" she asked, ignoring the way he jumped at the sound of her voice. He sighed, glaring at her over his shoulder before punching a few more keys.

"That's the question," he replied, leaning back into his chair. 

Not in the mood for word games, Lara crossed her arms over her chest, lips pressed together in a serious line. "Bryce…"

"Right." He swiveled in his chair, pushing himself across the arc-shaped workstation to another computer. Scrolling down the screen, he brought up a picture of a narrow-faced Arabic man in his mid-thirties. "Omar al-Khalilah, CEO of TMK Engineering."

Lara glanced at the picture, not bothering to hide her look of impatience. "I know; you sent his picture in your e-mail."

Bryce rolled his eyes. "Yes, but Mr. al-Khalilah here's got a bit to hide." He rolled over to another monitor. "It was easy enough to get the basic information off of the company's site, and other stuff wasn't a whole lot harder. I was diggin' around in the company's mainframe when I came across this." He pointed to the screen, which was filled with different colored rectangles, connected with a spiderweb of thin lines. "It's a graphic representation of the mainframe. The rectangles stand for data sectors, and the lines are pathways." He flicked his index finger against an orange-colored rectangle, with only one thin red line leading from it. "This baby's huge, a couple hundred gigs."

"What's in it?" she asked.

"I don't know," Bryce admitted. "I tried to get into it, but this just kept comin' up." He rolled back over to the monitor with the analyzer on it. "It's not data or anything—not even any of that nifty _Contact_-alien stuff. I washed it through damn near everything, but there's nothing to find. It's just noise."

"Noise?" She sounded skeptical.

"Listen," Bryce said, reaching over to pull the headphone jack from the hi-fi desktop speakers.

Chaos poured from the speakers, as if every radio in the country had been turned on simultaneously, all to different stations. It wasn't music, it wasn't static, and it definitely didn't have any sort of a pattern. Bryce was right, it was just noise. Lara was relieved when he turned off the speakers.

Bryce ran a hand through his hair, mussing the tousled shock of brown hair further. "I mean, I'm good, you know that, but I don't even know if this _is_ the data or some sort of encryption to protect the data itself."

She pursed her lips, thinking. Hillary appeared at that moment, bearing a tray laden with a sandwich, glass of juice, and a few rolls of gauze. Inwardly, Lara smiled at his thoughtfulness. He set the tray down on the edge of the worktable, positioning himself between Lara and the door, waiting silently for her to finish.

"A file that large, that heavily encrypted, has to be something significant," Lara said, stating the obvious. "Amiet, the Eye, this…something doesn't add up here." She looked down at Bryce. "_You_ can't get into this?"

He held up his hands, looking almost embarrassed. There was a moment before anyone spoke, and then he broke the silence. From the tone of his voice, Lara knew he'd been waiting for the opportunity to make this proposition. Which meant she probably wouldn't like it.

"There's someone I know," he began carefully, "with a lot of experience with encryption and coding. Did a few things for the government, big corporations, that sort of thing. Might know what's going on here."

Lara's eyes narrowed. "No."

Bryce didn't give up, trying a different approach instead. "Look, I know you hate bringin' other people onto the job, but you're goin' to have to if you want to figure this out."

She waited a moment, glowering at Bryce, who winced under her scrutiny. Resigned, Lara uncrossed her arms.

"Fine, but I want you working on this until then."

Bryce smiled. "You won't regret this, Lara."

"I had better not," she warned, watching as he exited the room, on a mission.

Hillary stepped forward before Lara could leave, setting the sandwich in front of Bryce's computer and pulling out the chair. He raised an eyebrow, as much an order as a suggestion.

Lara let out a small sigh. She might be his employer, but there were times when she just didn't argue with him. Her stomach gave a traitorous grumble and she sat down, reaching for the food.

"A minute, ma'am," he said. "Let me see your wrists, please." He held out one hand, a roll of gauze in the other.

"I told you, I'm fine," she protested.

"Humor me." His face was deadpan, firm yet mild.

In a small gesture of defiance, she grabbed the sandwich with her left hand, holding out her right as she peered at the wildly fluctuating analyzer on the screen in front of her.

"You could have at least visited a hospital," he grumbled, unwrapping the bandages and frowning at the scabbed-over abrasions.

Still studying the screen, Lara ignored his criticism. "Rather unusual for a corporation," she mused aloud. Then again, not so much so when you thought about Natla Technologies.

"It's about time Mr. Bryce was taken down a notch, however," Hillary quipped, gingerly rewrapping her wrist with a fresh bandage. Lara switched the sandwich to her other hand, idly watching as he tended to her left hand. She kept staring at the screen, finishing the sandwich at the same time her butler finished her wrist. He stood, looking at Lara for a moment.

"I wish you wouldn't stay up too late; there's little you can do until Mr. Bryce and his associate solve this puzzle."

For a second, Lara was about to protest, then realized not only the truth in Hillary's words, but just how drained she really was. She glanced up at the butler with a faint smile. "Thank you, Hilly."

He smiled back at her before walking from the room, taking the empty tray with him. With a last look at the monitor, Lara padded out of the Tech Room and upstairs to bed. 

~~~~~

The weather the next morning mirrored the way Lara felt, dark and forbidding. It had rained during the night, the cold wind thrashing against the windows. The rain had stopped long enough for Lara to take a pre-dawn run around the grounds of the Manor, an intermittent gray drizzle starting back up again just before she made it back inside. 

The rain dribbled over the skylight above the Great Hall, echoing softly throughout the house as she entered the Tech Room, coming to stand next to Bryce. He looked at her, eyes bleary.

"Don't even ask," he grouched, grimacing as he took a gulp from the coffee mug beside his mousepad. 

Lara sat down in a chair next to him, glancing at the unchanged analyzer on his screen. He'd been pounding away on that keyboard all night, and had absolutely nothing to show for it except a headache from all the caffeine. 

Typing in a string of commands, he pressed 'enter', watching expectantly as the computer worked on his instructions. A moment later the screen flickered, and then returned, unchanged.

Bryce swore unapologetically. He glared at Lara out of the corner of his eye. "You're an evil, evil woman, Lara Croft."

"I try," she smirked. He just sighed, trying another command to the same results. He leaned back in his chair, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hands.

A low beeping started, grabbing both Bryce and Lara's attention. They swiveled to face the bank of small color TVs behind them, scanning the images there. The feeds from the main gate showed a lone motorcyclist approaching the wrought iron, spray from the wet road fanning out like a ship's wake behind the rear tire. A black BMW K1200 RS, a part of Lara's brain supplied absently.

"Thank God," Bryce breathed, "she's here." He looked relieved, slumping in his seat.

Hillary appeared in the doorway. "Lady Croft, a—"

"I know," Lara said, gesturing to the security camera feeds. "Let her in, Hilly. She can park in the garage." Hillary nodded, catching the unsaid order in Lara's tone, before exiting the room.

She leaned back in the chair, watching the motorbike and its rider pass through the opening gate and up the drive. She watched impassively, her eyes flicking to a new set of TV screens, as the rider pulled the bike into the garage and parked it close to the door. Gloved hands came up to remove the matte-black full-faced helmet, setting it ontop of the bike's gas tank. Racing leathers followed, dripping rainwater onto the concrete floor as the woman smoothed a hand over the waist of her dark blue jeans. The woman took that opportunity to scan the room, ignoring the rows of high-performance and antique machines. Instead, she looked high, along the ceiling, clearly looking for cameras.

She stopped briefly as she caught sight of one, her eyes unknowingly locking with Lara's over the video feed. For the first time, Lara got a clear look at the woman, studying her with a practiced eye.

She was only an inch shorter than Lara, no older than late twenties, and slender in a flattering way. Her dirty blond hair was cut short in a shag style, framing a lightly tanned oval face with an aquiline nose and dark blue eyes. Her cupid's bow lips were pressed into a serious line, the only sign she showed of being on the alert. She moved deliberately, turning away from the camera as Hillary entered the garage, the combat boots she wore whispering over the floor. With the black turtleneck she wore, she could easily be mistaken for some sort of cat burglar.

Lara continued watching as the woman followed Hillary through the garage. He took the long way through the large room, leading the woman past the rows of vehicles. Lara watched the young woman's face as he led her by the weapons-filled cases. Her blue eyes flicked over them, the mask of her face never wavering as she took stock of the Colts, the Berettas, Remingtons, and Benelli shotguns. Even the Kalishnikovs and Uzis failed to garner any sort of surprise.

Lara shrugged inwardly. This associate of Bryce's either had a very good poker face, or she was used to seeing that sort of thing. Unlike Bryce, who had been gawking fearfully at everything when she'd done this same 'test' a little over two years ago, the day she'd hired him. No matter what kind of government work she'd done, it was different than knowing your employer had all sorts of nasty weaponry at her immediate disposal. She doubted the woman would look so calm if she saw a few of the things Lara kept locked up out of sight. 

She turned away from the monitors once the pair entered the house, thumbing a button near the bank of TVs, making each screen go blank. No need to let the woman know Lara could keep a _very_ close eye on her. Standing from her chair, she poked Bryce, who looked about two seconds from falling asleep completely.

"You can't just let a fellow sleep, can you?" he griped.

"She's here," Lara answered, watching as Bryce nearly bolted upright. 

As if on cue, Hillary reappeared, the woman following a pace behind him.

"Lady Croft, Ms. Alyson Stratmann," Hillary announced, stepping out of the way. Ordinarily—and even though she'd been brought up to accept it—Lara disliked it when Hillary went announcing everyone who came in. But it did make an impression on most people.

"Nice to meet you, Lady Croft." Her accent was definitely American, its West-Coast tinge softened by the beginnings of an acquired British accent. Alyson closed the distance between them evenly, extending her hand.

Lara shook it firmly. "Likewise," she said, mirroring the other woman's sober politeness.

The woman looked at Bryce, acknowledging him with a sight tilt of her head. "Hello, Bryce. Long time, no see."

Bryce stood stiffly. "'Lo Alyson."

A series of questions bloomed in Lara's mind at seeing the exchange. Apparently Bryce wasn't telling her the whole story about this woman. The last thing she needed was to have brought someone into this whole mess whom Bryce didn't even trust, much less her.

Dismissing Hillary with a practiced nod, Lara jumped right into business. "I've got a database I want you to get into for me. Bryce was unable to access it, and referred me to you."

Alyson glanced at Bryce, who looked even more uncomfortable, before her eyes returned to Lara's.

"Illegally, right?" she asked.

Lara's momentary silence served as an affirmative. 

The younger woman thought for a second. "What database is this, exactly?"

Lara stepped to the side, revealing the fluctuating analyzer on the LCD monitor behind her. Alyson's eyes narrowed momentarily before her face smoothed into its unreadable façade.

"Ah, Orpheus."

"You know what this is?" Bryce asked, looking slightly incredulous.

Alyson glanced at him again; this time, Bryce didn't squirm. "I should; I programmed the thing."

Bryce's lips moved silently, and Lara found herself briefly wondering why he seemed so surprised if he knew that this Ms. Stratmann was such an encryption expert.

"Orpheus?" Lara asked. She recognized the name of the legendary Greek musician of ancient myth, but not in any context having to do with computers

Alyson only shook her head. "I'm under a non-disclosure contract. Technically, I could already get you two in a lot of trouble for what you're trying to do here." Her last sentence was a distinct threat. But Lara knew that there were ways around those sorts of contracts.

"Twenty-five thousand pounds now, another seventy-five upon completion," Lara said evenly, completely serious.

The other woman didn't even bat an eyelid. "I could barely make bail—if I get it in the first place--on that if they caught me."

"Then try not to get caught." The way Lara said it, the corners of her lips tweaking upwards just barely, made Bryce want to duck under the worktable, out of harm's way.

The two women stared at each other, unflinching, for a miniature eternity. The air was charged with tension, willful energy fairly crackling between them. Then a wry smile broke Alyson's face, cutting through the pressure.

"I never get caught." Her voice was as cold as stone, but it did nothing to make Lara trust her more. 

Lara watched coolly as Alyson slid into the chair in front of the computer, studying the screen, fingers poised over the keyboard. Bryce took the other chair, watching intently.

Alyson talked as she typed, eyes flicking over the coding as it appeared. "The reason you haven't been able to get past Orpheus is because it's unlike any other encryption protocol out there. Instead of coding, passwords, and all that 'one zero one' junk, it's based on sound." 

Her eyes flickered to the speakers. "To you, it looks like one loud, chaotic noise, but it's far more than that."

She typed in another string of coding and hit 'enter'. Rotating along its axis, the analyzer seemed to separate into six slightly less complex spectrums, stacked horizontally like layers on a cake. "The single spectrum you were seeing is actually six interlaced spectrums, all on different audio channels that are only marginally different from each other. Unless you adjust the parameters, it'll all look like one spectrum; that's how we keep the easy hackers out."

Bryce scowled at her comment. "But that still didn't get you in," he commented.

"That's the hard part," Alyson said. "Orpheus is similar to a keyed lock in a door: the pins and tumblers of a lock need to be pressed down by the right key before the lock will open, and the tumblers are all different shapes and depths. But, in this case, we've got sound instead of tumblers. Certain sounds are needed to compliment the sounds in each spectrum, matching up like a key within a lock."

"So we just scan the spectrum and feed it the reciprocal sounds," Bryce said.

"That won't work." Alyson shot him a look that made him shut his mouth. "Orpheus' spectrums are all made up of randomly generated sonic tonalities that change every few fractions of a second; which was why I couldn't program in a back door for myself. If we scanned it, the reciprocal sounds would already be useless. It _could _work, with a Cray or two, but you two seem to be fresh out."

Ignoring the jab, Lara jumped into the conversation. "But you _can_ do it, can't you?" 

Alyson glanced back at her. "Yes. Fortunately, all the tonalities were programmed to be within the range of human hearing, which limits the possibilities somewhat. It'll be messy and take some time, but I can get in." She swiveled the chair around to face Lara. "What do you have for music around here?"

Lara was caught momentarily off-guard by the unusual question. "Music?"

"CD's, MP3's, WAV's, MIDI, hell, even vinyl if you've got something to play it on." Alyson shrugged briefly.

"I fail to see what music has to do with any of this."

"If I throw enough sound at these things, something is bound to stick together. Thankfully, once sounds are paired up, Orpheus won't refresh it; otherwise it would be impossible to crack."

Lara straightened. "You can start on the MP3s on this computer, and the house's audio system files are accessible through it as well." Alyson nodded in acknowledgement, turning back to her screen as Bryce began calling up a list of files on another computer.

She left the two experts to their task, trying to remember if Hillary had gotten rid of his old record collection as she walked under the vaulted ceiling of the Great Hall. 

~~~~~

Thousands of miles away, the weather was far from wet. A bright sun hung high in the sky, beating down with fierce intensity on the people who toiled below. 

In some sort of modern parody, Faraq stood like an ancient pharaoh, feet planted on the dry, rocky soil of a slight promontory. A faint breeze tugged at his clothes, the edges of his linen shirt rippling in the dry air. He held binoculars to his eyes, surveying the roughly two hundred laborers as they scurried over the nearly-completed structure. He did not sweat in the searing heat, not did he smile at the sight of the ziggurat, towering over the ground like a man-made mountain. The glazed outer bricks of the step-pyramid shone in the sunlight, a five-story testament to the future. Dozens of trucks, bearing more bricks and other such supplies, were clustered around the ziggurat's base, large portable cranes lifting the pallets of bricks to the workers above.

It was a grand sight, quickening Faraq's blood in his veins ever so slightly. In a matter of days this majestic structure would be complete, the birthplace of a new empire, his empire. His fingers tightened on the binoculars, feeling the promise of untold power coursing throughout his body.

Only a few more days…

Lowering the binoculars, he stepped back to his dusty Humvee. A man, a wiry Saudi with piercing eyes dressed in crisp desert fatigues, sat smoking in the passenger's seat, the butt of his Colt M4 carbine resting on his knee. With a last puff of smoke, he flicked the cigarette onto the ground.

"No matter how many times you look at it, my friend, it will still be there," he said in Arabic.

Faraq said nothing as he got behind the wheel, starting the engine and turning around, driving down the promontory. He didn't glance at his security lieutenant as he spoke. "Everything must be ready in time, Rahman. I trust you have our men helping to motivate the workers towards that goal?"

"Of course," the man said, brushing a bit of sandy grit from the weapon's casing disinterestedly. "A pair of laborers were slow to get up this morning. But now you should have no problem with punctuality until the work is finished." He looked out the front windshield as the Hummer hit level ground, flying over the dusty basin to the construction site a half-mile away. From this perspective, the ziggurat loomed higher, appearing as high as the surrounding foothills of the Zagros Mountains. 

Even with the mountains surrounding it, a project of this type and magnitude was extremely hard to hide. A series of large 'contributions' to Iranian government officials had inspired the country's government to turn a blind eye to the project. A few curious parties were told that it was a reproduction, built in the interests of anthropological study and public knowledge. An efficient story; it kept both Westerners and satellites from snooping around.

"It's a shame that girl didn't come to this site. I would have enjoyed pursuing such a thief." Faraq wasn't misled by the boredom in Rahman's voice. He'd worked with the Saudi for years, securing TMK's interests across the globe in countless situations. The man was a professional, not some gang leader they had hired in one of the villages. Dedicated to his job, loyal to his employer, and a very capable combat leader, his 'tastes' ran similar to Faraq's own. A very formidable combination in a security lieutenant.

Which wasn't to say that Faraq trusted him.

"It is good enough that she didn't. Your job is to keep this site secure; you don't need any distractions," Faraq said, steering the vehicle down the wide avenue in the sizeable tent village set up near the construction site. He parked next to a long canvas tent with several dozen antennas and satellite dishes set up on or around it. A pair of large, gas-driven generators growled nearby, thick power cables leading from them and into the tent. Slinging the strap of his M4 over his shoulder, Rahman followed his superior into the tent, 

The tent was crammed full of portable communications and computing equipment, most of it military-grade or better. A half dozen operators ran the whole setup, some moving form station to station while others sat in front of radios or computer screens. A few low words to the man in charge, and Faraq had the tent all to himself and Rahman. 

Faraq sat in front of a computer, typing a number into its interface. Behind him, Rahman lit another cigarette, leaning nonchalantly against one of the tent's support poles. The computer made a dialing sound before the teleconferencing link was established.

The screen flickered and Omar al-Khalilah's image, from the waist up, filled the screen. 

"It's late here, Faraq, I expect this to be _very_ good news." His tone was acidic. Behind him, Faraq could see the bare outline of a crescent moon high in the night sky, framed by the penthouse windows. A brief movement, behind al-Khalilah's back, caught Faraq's attention. A slender female foot poked out from under silk sheets, the rest of her hidden from view out of the camera's range. Clothes littered the floor, a pair of high heels lying on their sides like beached porpoises next to a man's dress shirt.

Faraq took in those details in less than a second, his eyes returning to meet his employers'. Even if it had been something new, it was none of his concern anyway.

"Construction is now operating slightly ahead of schedule. It is possible to move our established timetable up twenty-four hours."

Al-Khalilah didn't actually smile, but Faraq could read the pleasure in his eyes as he smoothed a hand over the silk of his robe. "That is good news. I will be there, then, ahead of schedule." 

"Everything will be ready for your arrival," Faraq assured.

Al-Khalilah's eyes moved to Rahman briefly before returning to look at Faraq. "Report to me if anything changes." He leaned forward slightly, ending the connection.

Faraq was silent as he left the tent, Rahman following a step behind. They hopped back into the Humvee, heading away from the tents to the ziggurat.

"Tell the men that I want them to be on constant alert. And keep them on top of the workers; the sooner they are done, the better. I want no interruptions or difficulties."

"Of course," Rahman replied. He grinned, a cold, humorless gesture. "I would not want to be that woman; not on a night such as this."

Faraq didn't offer any sort of reply, but inwardly agreed with his lieutenant: if there was one thing sweeter than flesh, it was blood. And on a night such as this, so close to success, Faraq knew al-Khalilah would want to celebrate, honeyed crimson staining his hands. The security chief was almost envious, but only for a brief moment. 

Only a few more days…

He could almost taste the coppery sweetness on his tongue.

~~~~~

Lara would've never described herself as impatient. While she much preferred taking action, she could wait for the right opportunity, the perfect moment. In her line of work, haste and recklessness meant an almost certain death sooner rather than later.

But that patience only went so far, especially when it came to things having to do with computers. 

The sun had just set, still shrouded in rain clouds, and Alyson and Bryce had barely moved from their stations in the Tech Room. Lara had tried to stay out of their way, reminding herself that there really wasn't anything she could do until they were done. She'd put the equipment she'd brought with her to Iraq back where it belonged and thoroughly cleaned her Berettas. She'd done laps in her pool for more than an hour, practicing holding her breath as she went. She'd sent a letter off to her publisher and brushed up on her basic Babylonian history.

Still filled with excess energy, she was on her way to the Gymnasium when she caved into temptation and went into the Tech Room.

Bryce and Alyson had dedicated every resource to the task of cracking Orpheus. Every single monitor showed audio analyzers, bouncing crazily like individual strobe lights. Occasionally an analyzer would flash, a leaping stripe of sound flashing green before freezing in place. Large sections of the spectrums were green, motionless. Crates of records and stacks of CDs were scattered all over the room, at odds with the neat chrome and glass of the workstation.

At the center of this electronic disarray, Alyson leaned back in her chair, rolling to another monitor and typing in a few commands. Lara was somewhat amused to see that she was barefoot—her combat boots discarded at one end of the workstation—and sitting cross-legged in the chair as if practicing some sort of computer yoga. As she moved, Lara caught a brief flash of color; a vivid band of yellow-red flame, tattooed in a circlet around the woman's right ankle, standing out on her flesh. She had a pair of headphones on, the cord snaking out behind her to connect into one of the hard drives.

Lara glanced at the small cot set up in the corner of the room as she entered, but there was no sign of Bryce anywhere.

"I was wondering how long it would take you to check up on me," Alyson said, her back still to Lara. She spun around in the chair, slipping the headphones down around her neck. She must've read the slightly odd look on Lara's face because she grinned briefly. "I tapped into the Manor's internal microphone system; just for this room, though." She glanced around. "Pretty hefty security system you have set up here."

Lara glared at her for a moment before changing the subject, coming to stand along the end of the workstation opposite from Alyson. "How much progress have you made?"

The other woman took stock of the displays. "About sixty percent of the spectrums have been matched."

"How much longer?"

Alyson shrugged. "Hard to say; anywhere from less than an hour to another eight. However," she waved a hand in the general direction of a stack of CDs, "all the electronic music you've got makes the process go slightly faster because the chances of matching electronically-generated tones are greater than with other kinds of music." She looked back up at Lara. "Not to mention, Lady Croft, it shows that you've got great taste."

Lara felt a small smile ghost across her face. "Where's Bryce?"

"I sent him to bed a few hours ago after he nearly fell asleep on top of the keyboard."

"Oh." Lara took a step forward, scrutinizing the analyzer on the nearest computer.

There was a brief pause before Alyson spoke. "I recognize that sort of 'oh'. You want all the gory details."

Lara was brutally honest. "Bryce recommended you, but he never said where he'd met you." She figured that was as good a place as any to start probing.

Alyson let out a small sigh, looking at the analyzer. "I wasn't his damn girlfriend, if that's what you think. I met him soon after I started doing contract work." She smiled absently, still looking distantly into the LCD screen. "We did a few small jobs together—nothing huge.

"I moved to the US and started doing much larger contracts; large corporations and even a few jobs for mid-level government systems. Four years ago, before Bryce started working for you, he was pretty hard up. I'd just finished a security protocol for a chemical manufacturer. Bryce copied the protocols off my hard drive and tried to modify them for a quick sale of his own—without telling me. It ended up in some very untrustworthy hands, and my client's security was seriously compromised.

"Turns out my client was a defense subcontractor working on some sensitive military projects. Since I was the only one who was supposed to have the protocols, I got stuck with the charges." A wry grin flitted across her face. "Some very serious, federal, charges. Last time I heard, I was on a very short list at the CIA."

"And so now you're over here," Lara finished for her.

"Yup. Not a bad country, the UK, but not my first choice. Too rainy and your Chinese food just sucks."

Lara couldn't help but roll her eyes at the American. "How eloquent." Her voice dripped with sarcasm. "Maybe you could take up travel writing instead of computer crime and running from the CIA."

"Last time I checked, _Lady_ Croft, handguns were illegal in this country." Her voice was completely neutral, almost as if she were giving a corporate presentation. "And I doubt you use the Kalishnikovs for fox hunting, or whatever it is you Brits run around killing."

Oddly enough, Lara felt a glimmer of respect start to form for the younger woman. Few unarmed people chose to argue with Lara Croft, and even fewer had a valid point. Even if they were obstinate Yanks.

A low beeping ended the verbal impasse, bringing both women's attention to the screen in front of Alyson. The last few lines of the spectrums flickered, all six analyzers an unmoving green.

"We're in." Alyson leaned over, removing a CD from one of the computer drives and giving it a cursory glance. "Ah, Timo Maas, bless your little German progressive-house soul."

Lara ignored the other woman's quip, watching as the analyzers disappeared, a brief cascade of numbers filling the screen. A moment later an archive appeared, a list of HTML and text documents filling the screen.

"Now what?" Alyson asked, hand on the mouse.

Lara looked down the list, scanning the names for anything that looked promising. "This one," she said, pointing to a file.

Alyson brought it up with a click of the mouse. Another list appeared, Lara's eyes quickly skimming over it. It was a list of supplies, almost like a billing sheet. Excavating equipment topped the list, followed by lighting and diamond masonry equipment, generators, and an ultrasound machine. Her suspicions aroused, Lara began to see a possible connection, remembering the equipment she had seen in Amiet.

"Go back," she said, picking another file from the list. It turned out to be far more different than the first.

It was certainly not a billing sheet. A large picture of a clay tablet filled the top of the screen, looking horribly similar to the friezes Lara had seen on the temple's walls. The figure of a man, stylized in the traditional Babylonian fashion, stood in the center of the tablet, a group of soldiers--their spears sticking up like grass--behind him. In one hand he held a short sword, and in the other a small, stylized sun. A round medallion with a jewel—symbolized by a tiny mark in the long-dried clay--in its center hung around his neck. Neat lines of cuneiform writing covered the rest of the tablet's surface.

Below the picture, lines of text appeared, a translation. Lara read it silently to herself, her heart hammering in her chest as she read:

__

"Born of the land of our fathers, he shall possess the Eye, and lead my kingdom to glory. Armies shall fall at his feet, and villages spring up in his wake, their people serving him. The sight of the Eye and help of the gods will guide his Hand, and wisdom and victory will be his."

The pieces began falling into place in Lara's mind. She looked down at Alyson, who looked puzzled.

"I don't get it," Alyson said. "Is this some kind of cult?"

Lara rummaged through a stack of printed pages on the workstation, holding up a single page like a precious artifact. She skimmed down the biographical data, searching. 

"It appears so," Lara said. A moment later she found what she was looking for on the page. 

"You're joking, right?" For the first time, the other woman looked unsettled. "An engineering company?"

"Maybe not the company, but certainly Mr. al-Khalilah."

"Where do you get that?"

"'_ Born of the land of our fathers',_" Lara quoted, holding up the piece of paper, "al-Khalilah was born in Iraq, the son of a businessman who moved to Saudi Arabia before the Iran-Iraq war. The Babylonian Empire was centered in Iraq, along the Tigris and Euphrates." She searched for another piece of paper, talking the whole time. "'…_ He shall possess the Eye, and lead my kingdom to glory_'. TMK was excavating a Babylonian temple in Iraq, where they recovered an artifact called the Eye of Hammurabi, a medallion the greatest king of Babylon supposedly wore. A group of archeologists were murdered a few days ago at that temple, and they tried to kill me when I investigated." Lara paused, coming up with the paper she wanted. "'_The sight of the Eye and help of the gods will guide his Hand…'_" she handed the piece of paper to Alyson. "Al-Khalilah doesn't like to publish it, but he is the founder of a small organization called The Hand of Babylon. It's supposedly for wealthy individuals with an interest in archeological projects relating to the Babylonian Empire. And," Lara continued, the last puzzle piece locking into place in her mind, "this organization is currently building a ziggurat in Iran; regardless of the fact the Babylonian Empire never graced the borders of that country. A few days away from completion, last I heard."

Alyson narrowed her eyes. "So you're basically saying that al-Khalilah, backed by a group of insidious, power-hungry fanatics, thinks he's the Babylonian equivalent of the Messiah and is going to use this Eye of Hammurabi to call upon divine powers to help him take over the world?" The cynicism in her voice was laid on so thick it could've been cut with a knife.

"From the top of a ziggurat in Iran's Zagros Mountains," Lara replied.

Alyson looked at her, laughter a second away from bursting from her lips. And then she saw Lara's face, the way her brown eyes were cold, face set in a gravely serious mask. "You're not kidding, are you?"

"I never kid." Lara's tone could've flash-frozen liquid alcohol. "I want you to copy every file in that sector onto our computers. Then sift through everything and get me timetables, schedules, memos, anything that shows when al-Khalilah is planning on putting his plans into action." She spun on her heel, plans of her own forming in her head.

"This goes beyond the terms of our original agreement," Alyson called out after her.

"Additional compensation pending results," Lara replied over her shoulder, disappearing from view before Alyson could say anything more.

"Yes, _ma'am_," Alyson murmured, pausing for a moment. Crazy or not, this Lady Croft had money, and seemed willing enough to pay. Which was good enough for her, she judged, fingers flying over the keyboard.

~~~~~

For the second time in forty-eight hours Lara found herself in Saudi Arabia, just a few miles outside of Riyadh. 

On the outside, she presented an air of casual calm, but inside, she was poised to fight, flee, or make any sort of excuse to explain herself. She scanned the faces of the people in the small airport's concourse, waiting for the same exclusive flight she was. Instinctively, her hands brushed against her thighs, fingers only skimming against the cotton of her pants. She felt almost naked without her Berettas, horribly vulnerable in the midst of the enemy.

But not completely vulnerable, she reminded herself, feeling the short carbon-composite blade strapped to her right calf, hidden from sight beneath her pants. She'd been on the wrong end of far too many knives lately, and had no real desire to be in front of another one. 

Her guns' absence wasn't the only thing that made her feel somewhat off-kilter. Dressed in cool business attire, her hair was unbound, falling in jet-black waves down her back to her waist. A set of blue, colored contacts covered her brown irises, a pair of mirrored sunglasses hiding her eyes further. A medium-sized duffel rested by her feet, filled with a few changes of clothes and the average travel accessories. She'd hidden a few pieces of equipment within her things; the hairdryer she'd packed was crammed to the gills with assorted miniature nasties and another knife, totally inoperable. Unable to find a way to sneak any sort of a gun past al-Khalilah's security, she had decided to leave them behind. Thankfully, she was used to having to pack frugally, and with only a few hours to spare.

Alyson had quickly found a wealth of archived communications between TMK's offices and the construction site in Iran, getting Lara an updated timetable: two days until execution. While Lara was dyeing her hair and getting her equipment together, Alyson and Bryce were concocting an alias and personnel file for her, making her appear as if she was a legitimate employee with TMK Engineering. Lara had frowned when Alyson had handed over her freshly laminated ID badge.

"I'm a bloody secretary?" Lara had blurted, spearing Alyson with a look. 

The other woman had shaken her head. "Yes, but think about it: no one ever notices a secretary. I've got it so you're cleared to be at the construction site, and you shouldn't have any contact with any of the higher-ups as long as you avoid them. You should be able to get into both the site and any records there without a problem."

Lara could see her point, but still grumbled about it nonetheless.

"And, for Christ's sake, don't put your hair up; someone'll bloody recognize you for sure," Bryce had advised, earning another heated glare just before she drove away from the Manor.

Alyson's 'research' had given Lara an easy way to insinuate herself into the project. Another favor from Shugrave had again gotten Lara to Riyadh without any hassle or undue notice; not easy for a woman traveling alone in the Middle East. A quick taxi ride, and she was at the small airport with other TMK employees, waiting for their flight to Iran and the construction site. She'd had to flash her ID at the airport gate, and hadn't had to use it since. Alyson had been right—no one notices a secretary. 

Her eyes raked back over the dozen people scattered around the small concourse. Only a tiny fraction were holding conversations, most choosing to remain quietly in their own little spaces, waiting patiently. All appeared like office-types, simple paper pushers or number crunchers. Still, Lara kept her guard up, perfectly aware that appearances could be misleading. 

A little over an hour passed before their wait ended. A white Boeing 717, unmarked save for the registration numbers, landed on the hot tarmac, taxiing to a few dozen yards from the concourse. A fuel truck immediately trundled out, filling the plane's tanks as it rested, gleaming brightly in the direct sun.

Almost as soon as the fuel truck finished, a string of three, black Mercedes sedans drove onto the tarmac. The first disgorged a half-dozen suited bodyguards—it wasn't hard for Lara to see the telltale bulge under their jackets and the collective absence of necks—who promptly walked to the second car. One of them opened the rear door, standing impassively as a lone middle-eastern man stepped from the car. The man smoothed a hand over his dark suit before walking up the steps into the plane; even from the slight distance, she could tell that it was al-Khalilah.

The third car was filled with what were probably al-Khalilah's closest collaborators; three men and a woman. Lara doubted that they were TMK executives given the purpose of this journey. Most likely members of The Hand of Babylon, come to join in the fun, Lara reflected. All four disappeared into the plane, followed by the rest of the bodyguards as the cars drove off.

A few minutes later, a trio of bodyguards arrived at the concourse, escorting the waiting employees out of the building, across the tarmac and to the plane. Unlike al-Khalilah and his supporters, they entered through a rear door behind the wing, getting their IDs checked and a quick pass with a metal detector wand as they entered. Again, Lara was waved through with little more than a cursory glance. 

The plane was spacious inside, taking a few design notes from Air Force One and making the most expensive first-class seat on a commercial carrier look like a sardine tin. Lara had no trouble finding a seat near the rear of the plane, close enough to another employee to avoid notice but far enough away to keep an eye on everything else. A pair of bodyguards took up stations near the bulkhead at the front of the compartment, preventing access to the front of the plane and al-Khalilah. Minutes later, they were airborne, gently banking towards the Persian Gulf as the plane climbed upwards.

~~~~~

Leaning back into his plush seat, Omar al-Khalilah calmly looked at the middle-aged man sitting across from him, barely paying attention to what the man was saying as he stared out at the dry earth that whipped by underneath the helicopter.

"—you think this works; we've spent far too much money on this project already." The man pursed his lips with a faintly sour expression, the whining tinge to his voice grating on al-Khalilah's nerves. He shifted, gazing disinterestedly out the large window beside him. His expression didn't change as the shape of the ziggurat grew larger against the mountain backdrop.

"My company makes billions of dollars annually, Mr. Townsend; we can spare the funds." Al-Khalilah's voice was cool, barely hiding the disgust he felt for the man. It was clear that he had no vision, no faith in what they were about to do. He cared nothing for the cause, concerned only with the money and authority he enjoyed as TMK's senior financial director. Al-Khalilah would've gladly disposed of him earlier if the man wasn't so effective. It was no small satisfaction to him, that, in only a few more days, Townsend and his services would be unnecessary. 

Glancing at the men and woman seated around him in the helicopter's luxurious interior, his sense of relief grew. Senior members of the Hand, they were all motivated by the promise of power and wealth. Al-Khalilah found the entire lot of them disgusting, repelled by their doubting ways and immersion in simple human greed. Unlike him, they did not appreciate the true power and purpose of the Eye.

Power and wealth were nice, he knew, but the chance to become a god…

A small thrill ran through him as his fingers rested against the Eye nestled securely in his jacket pocket. He could almost physically feel the pull of the ziggurat on him, calling to him in a seductive siren's song.

The call grew in intensity, reaching a crescendo as the helicopter's wheels touched the ground, the slowing rotors throwing a swirling cloud of dust around the windows. The moment the dust settled Omar exited the helicopter, taking a deep breath and savoring the smell of the desert air.

Unclasping his hands from behind his back, Faraq walked over to meet Omar from where he had been standing on the edge of the landing area. A small group of uniformed security commandos overtook him, responsible for showing al-Khalilah's fellow passengers to the hastily-built accommodations set up for them within the site encampment. He stood patiently beside his employer as Omar watched the quartet of senior members disappear into the maze of canvas tents.

"I hope your flight was uneventful," Faraq offered by way of greeting.

"Tedious, yes, but uneventful," al-Khalilah replied.

Both men turned around as another helicopter landed nearby, blowing a cloud of dust around it before its dual rotors stopped turning. Unlike the sleek and comfortable Bell 430 that had carried him, this helicopter, a CH-46 Sea Knight, was designed for carrying heavy equipment or troops—not comfort. Security personnel and laborers flocked to the helicopter, preparing to remove its cargo as its passengers disembarked from the rear ramp.

Uninterested in the group of minor department heads and employees, al-Khalilah watched as the laborers unloaded aluminum bins, as large as the average office desk, from the chopper's belly, carefully stacking the heavy containers on forklift pallets.

Al-Khalilah knew the order would be unnecessary—Faraq did not need to be told—yet he gave it anyway. "I want those guarded carefully; nothing is to disturb them."

Faraq's eyebrow twitched, the only visible reaction to the subtle insult and doubt. With a brief bow, he excused himself. He walked over to speak with Rahman, who was overseeing the unloading operation. 

Satisfied, al-Khalilah was a second away from turning around when he froze, his eyes locking onto a figure a few dozen feet away from him.

A woman stood amidst the small crowd of office employees, coolly looking around her as her peers gathered their luggage. She was undeniably beautiful, lithe and pleasantly curvy, her face smoothly unreadable around mirrored sunglasses. As he watched her, he was struck by the intense desire to run his fingers through her long, black hair. But what held his attention was the way she stood. Confidence radiated from her, along with a certain mix of cautious ability.

Turning her head, her gaze met his briefly before moving on, any reaction she had to him hidden. He smiled briefly to himself as Faraq returned to stand beside him. 

"What is it?" Faraq asked quizzically, seeing the small smile on his superior's face. 

"Nothing," Omar said, watching as the woman and the rest of the employees were led into the tent encampment. He turned on his heel, Faraq alongside him. "Come, I want to see the sanctuary."

The two men walked away from the landing area, leaving a flurry of activity behind them.

~~~~~

Lara stared up at the canvas roof of the tent through slitted eyes, listening to the faint sounds of the night around her. Her eyes slid sideways, studying the other figure sleeping in the cot across from her. The other woman was still, breathing evenly with her back to Lara.

Taking a breath, Lara slipped out of her cot with the faintest whisper of her dark clothing on the rough wool. She stalked over the wood floorboards, slipping out of the tent's door flap and into the inky blackness of the desert night.

Instantly on the alert, she scanned the immediate area for patrolling guards. Luck was with her; the coast was clear. She wasted no time in sneaking through the rows of tents, eyes and ears probing the dark.

She was close to the communications tent when the sound of feet scraping on the ground made her freeze. She crouched low to the ground behind the corner of the closest tent, hiding in the shadows as her fingers curled towards the throwing knife sheathed on her left arm.

Utterly still, she listened as the guard passed by barely five feet from her position. She waited a few heartbeats before peeking around the corner. The guard, his back to her, cradled his weapon in his arms as he peered down the rows of tents, completely alert. Well-equipped, he was a reminder that she was dealing with professionals; not the lax mercenaries she had dealt with in Amiet. 

A reminder that didn't stop Lara from making her way straight to the security tent.

Close to the communications tent, she'd seen the security headquarters tent while delivering a pile of faxes across the camp soon after her arrival. Hours later she'd grabbed a clipboard and a stack of memos, taking a break from all the tedious filing to take another look at the security setup. She'd seen something promising close to the tent, but couldn't get close because of the guards all over the place. Which meant this little detour on her reconnaissance mission.

She waited until the guard turned the corner before bolting across the narrow path between the tents to hide between the rumbling communications generators. She looked at her watch, counting the last few seconds down mentally as she watched the security tent through a gap between the tent and the generators.

Lara smiled wryly as a man stepped from the tent, an M-16 slung over his shoulder just as she reached 'zero'. The guards' rigid professionalism could be both a strength and a weakness, she reflected. Time to take advantage of the latter.

Her eyes tracked the man as he moved away from the tent and into the encampment. Waiting a moment, aware of the split-second timing necessary, she took another breath before racing over to the tent's entrance while trying to move as quietly as possible. Looking around for any last sign of a guard, she stepped into the tent, muscles coiled in anticipation.

She found herself alone, just as she'd hoped. Yet she didn't let her guard down, quickly crossing the width of the tent.

A portion of the tent's wall the size of a large door had been cut away. A midsize storage container, the thing that had originally captured Lara's attention that day, opened up through the hole. With a last glance behind her, Lara stepped into the container, not sure what to expect.

It took a tiny second for the sight on front of her to register before a devilish smile broke out across her face. Her eyes fell upon neat rows of semi- and fully automatic machine guns, matte-black steel gleaming in the scant light seeping in from the tent. Considering the wide range of weapons in front of her, she selected a Heckler and Koch UMP45 submachine gun; she would've preferred the one next to it with the sound suppressor, but she needed the smaller size. An Uzi—she resisted the urge to grab another; two would surely be missed--went into her backpack with the UMP, along with a fistful of spare magazines for each weapon taken from open crates. She decided against a handgun; it would be difficult enough just trying to hide the UMP. Looking down at her feet, she was mildly surprised to see a half-dozen LAW rocket launchers, lying benignly in their wooden crates. Lara made a mental note of their location just before she stepped out of the container and back through the tent. Knowing she had less than a minute left, she peered out the flap. Her luck held and she slipped into the shadows cast by the tents unnoticed. But there was no way she could begin to relax; she was nowhere near finished for the night.

While her progress was measured by only a few feet at a time, Lara's heart was pounding as she moved among the shadows, staying out of the path of roaming guards as she aimed for the outskirts of the encampment. Her heart skipped in her chest, riding a wave of adrenaline, as she crouched in the shadows of a tent set up on the outer edge of the camp. Taking a last cautious look around, she pulled a pair of binoculars from her backpack and put them to her eyes.

The base of the ziggurat, about a half-mile away from her position, leaped into focus. Zooming in, she scanned every square foot of the stone pyramid, making mental notes on its design and general layout. Excluding the fact that it was a brand-new replica of an ancient structure, it was fairly unremarkable; just a symmetrical pile of stone blocks with wide steps leading up one face to a square sanctuary at the peak. What caught Lara's interest, however, was the activity going on along the ziggurat's base.

A group of two dozen people, about half laborers and half security personnel, were clustered along a section of the pyramid's base. Spotlights had been set up where they were working, and Lara could see the glint of metal underneath their glare. Zooming in further, she recognized the stacks of aluminum containers from the chopper she had arrived in earlier in the day; about three dozen of them in all. Eight of them were lying open on the ground, and more laborers were placing others further down the structure's base. Most of the workers were grouped around the open containers, scooping sandy soil from the bins and flinging it onto the ground as if they were sowing wheat.

Puzzled, Lara watched them for a few minutes. One group of workers emptied a bin, moving onto the next one in line. It too, held nothing but sandy soil. Pursing her lips, Lara wracked her brain for any sort of explanation for why people would be spreading dirt around, but was at a total loss.

The weight of this new mystery, coupled with the timetable looming over her head, prodded at Lara's mind. She pushed it away, focused on making her way back to her tent in the darkness, still avoiding the commandos patrolling the area. She continued to ignore it once she had reached her tent, moving gingerly so as not to make a sound as she pried up one of the floorboards beneath her cot. Stuffing her backpack with its stolen weaponry into the hole, Lara replaced the board, leaving the nails underneath. With a last, furtive look at her sleeping 'roommate', she slipped into her cot, her mind free to chew on the myriad plots and questions surrounding her. 

She fell asleep twenty minutes later without a single answer.

~~~~~

Biting her lower lip in thought, Alyson Stratmann paused before adding her signature to the piece of paper before her, setting the pen down with an air of finality. Turning, she propped the note against the central keyboard on Bryce's workstation before walking from the Tech Room.

Moving quietly, she made her way through the Manor and into the garage. It took her a second to fasten her helmet, tugging on a pair of gloves before she wheeled her motorbike up to the garage door. She quickly entered a series of numbers on the adjacent keypad, gritting her teeth as the metal door rolled up with entirely far too much noise. As soon as it was up high enough she wheeled the bike through, unwilling to make the smallest noise as she waded into the morning mist still crawling over the ground in the dim light of very-early morning.

Two long minutes passed before she was at the main gate to the Manor, but it took her seconds to enter another code. The gate rolled open with an electric hum and Alyson walked through.

The need for silence over, she swung onto the bike and started it in one motion. In another heartbeat she took off, bits of gravel kicking out behind her as she aimed for the M25.

She'd barely driven more than a mile and a half, out of sight of Croft Manor, when the shrieking of car tires accelerating on pavement erupted behind her.

Alyson whipped her head around, her heart leaping to her throat as she caught sight of a white, unmarked van with darkly tinted windows roaring up the road behind her. A black sedan followed behind it; she could just make out the driver talking on some sort of radio through the bright glare of the headlights shining in her eyes. She didn't hesitate for a moment, experience guiding her actions. Hunkering over the motorcycle she opened up the throttle, ignoring the speedometer as the needle leapt closer to the red.

Behind her, the van dropped back slightly, unable to accelerate fast enough. The driver wasn't taken by surprise for very long, and in another second the van was keeping pace a half-dozen carlengths behind the speeding motorcycle. The sedan stuck behind it, driver still on his radio.

Alyson's muttered curse was lost in the buffeting wind as she pushed the bike faster. Ahead of her, the road took a gentle turn to the right, looking very pastoral and inviting in the strengthening light of the rising sun. It was anything but inviting at these speeds: she was forced to slow just enough to get though the bend without wiping out, her knee scant inches from the ground as she leaned through the turn.

Her pursuers dropped back another two carlengths as they took the turn, but stayed with her. Tired of playing her game, the driver of the more powerful sedan overtook the van as soon as they cleared the curve, punching the accelerator. Alyson's lead quickly shrank in half.

Still accelerating, she sprinted to the next curve, this time in the opposite direction. She took it recklessly fast, asphalt whipping by her face in a gray blur before she pulled out of the turn, milking the throttle for all it was worth. The sedan's tires squealed as it followed her, fishtailing slightly, but the driver held on, relentlessly following behind her on the straightaway.

A few hundred yards ahead she could see a quiet little intersection, almost hidden by a copse of trees. If she timed it right, she might be able to turn into it at the last minute, buying her some more distance between herself and her pursuers. The distance closed rapidly at 110 miles per hour, giving her only a few seconds to time her move. Her fingers began squeezing the brake, her arms barely starting the turn as the driver behind her spoke into his radio.

Ahead of her, another black sedan sped out from the copse of trees at the intersection, completely blocking the road. Alyson tried braking, but all she could do was try to get her leg out of the way as the laws of physics, helped by her excessive velocity, took over.

The bike fell onto its left side, skidding along the pavement with its nose perpendicular to its path. While her left leg escaped being severed, she felt tendon and muscle tear along the knee where it was bent over the gas tank the second the motorcycle hit. She was thrown from the bike the next second, colliding with the road so hard that her left forearm snapped beneath her. Her helmet smashed into the ground, the plastic shell cracking with the strain. She rolled like a rag doll off the road, coming to rest in the weed-clogged drainage ditch. Her bike took longer to stop, grinding to a halt only a few feet from the second sedan with a last spray of sparks.

Everything was still for a moment, frozen in time, before her pursuers slowed to a halt. The driver of the first sedan, an ordinarily unremarkable man in a blue business suit, was the first to step out, walking unhurriedly towards the black mound lying in the ditch. Behind him, a quartet of unremarkable men wearing dark blue jumpsuits hopped out of the back of the van. The man in the suit stopped right at the edge of the road, peering down at the scene before him, expressionless.

Amazingly, Alyson was still conscious. She had even managed to rip her damaged helmet off her head, cradling her left arm to her chest. She struggled to rise, to run away from the man looking at her, but her torn knee buckled beneath her and she crumpled to the ground with an agonized moan.

A look of concern flickered across the face of one of the jumpsuited men. "We should call an ambulance."

"In a minute," the man in the suit said dismissively. He stepped down, walking the few steps to the bottom of the ditch to stand a few feet from Alyson. The young woman was on her back, grimacing at the man in a combination of pain and fury.

"I should've known…you'd enjoy this," she spat, wincing as the man poked the toe of his shoe against her damaged knee.

"Not quite as much as this part," he replied, looking down at her almost smugly as he took a breath. "Alyson Stratmann, you have the right to remain silent…"

~~~~~

"I don't see why they wanted us in the first place if they're just going to tear this place down. I mean, we've barely been here a day."

Lara gritted her teeth, willing herself not to scream out loud in frustration. The day had started out bad, and had gotten progressively worse. She'd been unable to escape the guards' watchful eyes, forced to stay with the rest of the office employees. She'd been handling faxes all day, sorting incoming reports and other tedious work, somewhat amazed that al-Khalilah would want employees at the site to handle what amounted to so much busywork. 

In addition to the frustration of having to play secretary while burning to do something to derail al-Khalilah's plan, she'd been stuck next to her tentmate--Nichole, a data entry clerk from the London office—for the entire time, forced to listen to her incessant chatter. Lara had almost gone mad listening to her prattle on about her latest relationship, running through a few meditation exercises just to keep her thoughts away from how much she missed her Berettas. As of that weren't enough, her wrists had started to itch underneath the cuffs of her shirt, the scabs finally beginning to heal. Coupled with the tension from trying to maintain her cover and keeping an eye out for the perfect moment to act, she was working on a wonderful complex.

Never mind that she didn't know exactly what to do once that moment arrived. Right now, she was banking on Plan A: shoot everything remotely important as soon as possible and steal the Eye.

"Besides," Nichole whined, looking at Lara with her pale blue eyes as if hoping for sympathy, "isn't this place just the nastiest you've ever been to? The sand….ugh. At least there's a water truck today; I'm dying for a shower." She shuddered slightly as she looked out the open tent flap, watching as a group of laborers stepped through it carrying packed office equipment to a waiting truck.

"Miss Brant, Miss Collins, we have one last fax coming in, and then we're going to finish packing up." Lara looked up as her 'boss', a nervous-looking man with a crooked tie, walked by scowling. Lara nodded, relieved when Nichole followed the man out of the tent.

In front of her, the fax machine beeped, spitting out a piece of paper. Thinking that it was just another earnings report, Lara was about to toss it in the pile with all the other faxes when a sentence caught her eye:

__

…Stratmann was arrested in Surrey, England and awaits extradition. Agents from the London field office believe that she was in the employ of the Lady Lara Croft, whose access to sensitive company information was neither warranted nor legally obtained. Security recommends placing Croft under immediate surveillance pending…

A string of curses ran through Lara's mind. Trying to look nonchalant, she glanced around to make sure no one was watching before folding the piece of paper and slipping it into her pocket. With a last look around the near-empty tent, she stepped outside, making her way purposefully to her own tent. Fortunately, Nichole wasn't there, giving Lara the opportunity to stuff the fax into her backpack while reassuring herself that her guns were still there.

She glanced briefly at her watch. It was only a shade past two in the afternoon, and still nothing significant had happened. Some of the tents were being packed up, and a lot of the construction equipment was being evacuated, but otherwise it seemed like business as usual at the camp. 

Well, except for the ring of guards around the ziggurat's base; that was a dead giveaway to Lara that al-Khalilah would be making his move tonight. Which left her with little to do except wait until the moment where she could do the most damage.

Not content to simply sit on her hands, she grabbed a change of clothes, exiting the tent crossing the short distance to the latrine tents, and entering the one closest to her. The sex-segregated tents seemed rather inefficient given the limited water supply, but it seemed that there were some things that al-Khalilah couldn't get away with in this conservative nation. 

There were two other women in front of the mirrors hung from canvas wall opposite the door, chatting away in Arabic. Lara kept on ear to their conversation, receptive to any clue or information as she washed away the desert grit of the last day. The water was unheated, but a refreshing break from the solar oven outside and she felt a tiny fraction of the stress that had been building up in her muscles drain away.

The two women were gone when she finished a few minutes later, grabbing a short towel from where she had draped it over the door to the shower stall. Wrapping it around her, she made a beeline for the small bench where her clothes were. Making sure the room was empty she dropped the towel, slipping into a pair of underwear and a sports bra.

"Oh, I seem to have stumbled into the wrong tent!"

Lara froze for a moment, adrenaline trickling into her veins at the smooth, accented tone of the voice. She straightened, yet did not turn around, using the mirrors in front of her to see who was behind her.

The trickle became a sizeable stream and her muscles tensed as her eyes locked with Omar al-Khalilah's. He had one hand in the pocket of his suit jacket as he walked up behind her, a surprised look on his face. It would've fooled almost anyone else, but Lara saw through the façade, reading the look in his eyes; his being here was no accident. She looked past al-Khalilah, at the tent's only door, but the unmistakable silhouette of a burly commando stood in it, his back to the scene inside. 

She glanced down at the pile of clothes she had worn earlier, imprinting its position in her mind. With her only possible escape route blocked, she might have to use the composite blade tucked underneath the pile.

She briefly entertained the thought of killing al-Khalilah outright with it, with fewer witnesses, but decided against it. Al-Khalilah was only a part of the problem; she would need to either take or destroy the Eye to prevent anything from happening. And seeing as how she had no idea where the Eye was, she still needed al-Khalilah alive.

At least for a few more hours, she mused, turning around to face the man.

"I apologize, Miss…?" al-Khalilah asked. He still wore that false mask of innocence, trying to deceive her as his eyes roamed over her body. Long used to being ogled by men, Lara ignored the oily touch of his gaze, focusing on the potential threat he posed.

It was all she could do, however, to keep from reminding him that if he really was sorry, he would've turned around immediately. "Collins, Linda Collins."

"Ah, yes. Your accent puts you at the London office, no?" al-Khalilah took a step closer, coming within two feet of Lara. An inch shorter than her, he had to tilt his eyes up to meet her gaze.

"Yes," Lara answered simply, turning her back to the man as she grabbed a pair of khaki pants from the bench, wriggling into them before he could stop her.

"It's a shame I've never seen you before; you are a very beautiful woman." She froze as his eyes came to rest on her wrists, which she hadn't yet had time to dress. The still-healing scabs were painfully obvious, and she had to squash down on the urge to wrench herself away as al-Khalilah's hand went around hers, turning her around to face him. He lifted her wrist, scrutinizing it.

"You are injured?" Again, that false look of concern that did not touch his eyes.

"Just a hiking mishap from a week ago, nothing major," Lara supplied, turning back around, trying to act demure.

Al-Khalilah let her wrist drop, but his hand traveled upwards, brushing against the faint line of a long-healed scar just above her elbow. "And this? Another hiking accident?"

Lara took a tiny breath, pushing away thoughts of decking al-Khalilah and his roving hands with a swift left hook. Instead she played her part, acting like the helpless secretary.

"A plane accident, a long time ago," she supplied vaguely, seeing no reason to offer up an outright lie.

"You seem to be rather unlucky, Linda," al-Khalilah offered, brushing the pad of his thumb against the curve of her shoulder. Lara didn't say anything.

"Tell me," he continued, "are you happy? Surely a woman like you could be so much more." Lara thought it impossible, but his voice had taken on an even oilier hint, the mesmerizing hiss of the viper before it strikes.

A hundred retorts flew through her head in an instant, yet she pressed her lips together, opting to just let al-Khalilah make his own conclusions.

"No?" he asked, his forefinger tracing over the vertebra of her upper back before returning to brushing against her shoulder. "That is unfortunate, but I can change all that, Linda, I can make you happy. And not just happiness, I could give you riches beyond your greatest dreams; everything you've ever wanted would be yours." He took another step forward, his breath crawling lightly over Lara's skin with each word. "But I could give you even more," he continued, and Lara could feel his gaze on her bare skin, "You are young, beautiful, and quite…fit. Wouldn't you like to stay this way forever; to never have to worry about death again, much less some trivial scrape?" His hand brushed against her wrist.

"Come with me," al-Khalilah whispered in her ear," and it will all be yours after tonight."

Lara couldn't help it: she rolled her eyes behind closed eyelids. Still, her mind raced, trying to come up with some sort of answer. She slowly turned, looking levelly at al-Khalilah, ready to grab the blade behind her if he wasn't happy with her answer.

Fate intervened for her in the form of a commando who burst into the tent. Ignoring Lara, he walked right up to al-Khalilah, who turned to face the newcomer with naked anger in his eyes.

"I asked not to be disturbed!" he growled in Arabic, thinking that Lara was incapable of understanding him. 

"I apologize sir, but Mr. Townsend wishes to see you. He says that it is a vital matter requiring your attention."

Al-Khalilah's right hand curled into a fist and Lara heard a knuckle crack just before his face fell into a stony, emotionless mask. He turned to Lara, mustering up a false smile.

"Think about what I have said, Miss Collins, and remember, I must have your answer by tonight." And with that he pivoted on his heel, exiting the tent and taking the two commandos with him, leaving Lara by herself.

"Bloody bastard," Lara muttered under her breath, quickly fastening the composite blade in its sheath to her calf, tucking the leg of her pants over it. Tossing a sleeveless cotton shirt over her head, she made her way out of the tent, thinking about al-Khalilah's words.

Oh, he'd certainly get his answer tonight, she thought grimly. Hopefully, once she'd ruined his little party tonight he'd get the hint.

~~~~~ 

"I wouldn't go in there if I were you sir," the young agent fairly stammered, "she already bit Agent Browne when he was in there earlier."

The other man's cool gaze slid over to the young agent. "Open the door, Agent." His vaguely Italian accent didn't seem to go with his faint Arabic features, serving to make him appear even more strange and imposing.

The young agent hesitated before shrugging, entering a series of numbers into the keypad beside the white steel door. It unlocked with a soft click, and the agent pushed it open slightly, watching as the other man stepped through. The agent waited another moment before closing the door behind the man, returning to his station, his back to the small cell's two-way observation mirror.

Inside the cell, sitting on the concrete floor with her back to the white-painted cinderblock wall, Alyson looked up at the newcomer. Her weary, pain-filled expression changed to one of defiance. And yet, a noticeable tinge of dread was visible in her eyes.

"Miss Stratmann," the man said, stepping to within a half-dozen feet of his prisoner, looking down at her.

"Took you long enough, David. I was beginning to think you guys were just going to let me go."

David took another step closer to her, a cold smile on his face. "Just as snide and flippant as before." Alyson just glared at him in response. His grin grew slightly wider. "I wonder if you would still be so snide once the charges are read." He took another step toward her. "And, believe me, there's quite a long list, and not all of them are from the US. Not to mention, all these criminal charges are on top of the contract violations you've recently committed."

"I haven't violated our contract," she sighed.

David shook his head mockingly. "We aren't as stupid as you might think. It never occurred to you that we might have modified our security systems since you finished Orpheus, did it? With sensitive information in our database, it was wise to double-check your work. Although, we almost didn't catch you after you entered the database, so my compliments."

Alyson shifted against the wall with a grimace, trying to keep her leg straight in front of her without shifting her arm more. Both injuries, especially her knee, were still swelling, making just sitting even more painful with every passing minute. "I didn't get into your database, David. I've got too much crap to worry about without you guys trying to drag me into court."

David's smile, cold as it was, dropped from his face, replaced with a businesslike mask. "Lady Lara Croft, Miss Stratmann, why was she interested in our database?"

"She wants to build an oil rig near her rowhouse on the Thames and needed an estimate."

"I'll warn you only once, Miss Stratmann, there are worse things than a US prison. I'm sure that for the right amount of money, the agents here would gladly release you into my custody." His voice was eerily calm. "They have done it before. Now, why were you helping Lady Croft get into our database?"

Alyson just shrugged in mock innocence.

The man took a quick step forward. Alyson was in no shape to move out of the way as he kicked her sharply on her injured knee. He stepped back as she gritted her teeth, little sunbursts of agony sparkling behind her closed eyelids.

"This is going to get very tiresome, Miss Stratmann, if you don't cooperate. Now, where is Lady Croft at this moment? And don't tell me you don't know; you left after she did, so surely you must have some sort of idea."

Alyson sucked in a breath before opening her eyes. "She didn't say; I'm not really in her privileged little circle of informed friends."

"I think you're lying." He kicked her again, making her slump against the wall. Feeling pain explode in her leg with every heartbeat, Alyson lay still, not bothering to keep the venom out of her eyes as she looked at the man. 

"Iraq? Iran? Saudi Arabia? Kuwait?" He watched her face, trying unsuccessfully to pick up on any reaction. His eyes narrowed.

He emerged from the cell fifteen minutes later, shutting and locking the door behind him. He looked at the young agent, who was still standing there with his back to the observation mirror. 

"You can have the medics look at her now, but she is not to leave that cell," David ordered, looking evenly at the agent.

"Yes sir," the man nodded, immediately dialing a number on the closest wall-mounted phone as the older man walked down the corridor. He spoke a few words into the receiver before hanging up. Looking into the mirror as he walked by, he couldn't help but briefly wince as he caught sight of the figure lying motionless on the floor before he resumed standing at his post, his back to the mirror.

~~~~~

Lara had been sitting on her cot, trying to make it look as if she were reading in the intense light of late afternoon, when the guard burst in. For one heart-stopping second she thought they'd finally caught on about the guns, not to mention the two spare ammo clips she had lifted on her way back from the showers.

"Up," he ordered, none too politely.

She complied, instantly back on the alert. "What's going on?"

"Choppers take you back now," he replied, looking impatient. 

"Let me get my clothes together; I'll just be a moment," Lara answered.

The guard looked about to demand that she leave, but seemed to remember some order to be polite. "Hurry," he growled, stepping out of the tent.

Lara wasted no time in grabbing her backpack from beneath the floor. The buttstock of the UMP was folded over, making it fit a little less conspicuously in her backpack, but she threw a shirt over it just to be safe. If anyone searched her backpack, the charade would be over in a second. Hopefully, she'd be putting them to good use before that happened, giving up the ruse on her terms.

The rocky ground was radiating heat from the harsh sun when she stepped outside. The group of office employees that had arrived with her, as well as some communications operatives and other personnel, were standing in one large group in the main avenue of the encampment. The area was also crawling with armed commandos, who appeared to be rounding the employees up for the helicopters.

Lara joined them, keeping her eyes peeled for a way to slip away from the group. There was no way that she was going to be stuffed back onto a helicopter out with al-Khalilah still in possession of the Eye. 

She was still looking, unable to move more than a few steps without a guard's eyes flitting over her, when the last of the employees joined the group and the guards started escorting them in one direction.

Lara felt a small tingle of alarm worm its way down her spine a minute later when she realized that they were being walked in the opposite direction of the landing area--where a pair of motionless helicopters were resting--straight towards the ziggurat. It took a few more minutes for the other employees to realize this, and a few questioning murmurs arose from the group. The guards ignored them, keeping their net formation around the people, keeping them moving to the stone pyramid looming ahead.

"Um, sir?" Lara's boss jogged up, coming even with the commando in front, the same man who had come into her tent. "Are you sure this is the right way to the landing area? Isn't it the other way?"

The commando gave the man an icy glare. He moved the barrel of his weapon fractionally towards the manager, a subtle warning. The man grimaced before moving back to his previous place within the group, looking worried.

The group continued on in silence, coming to a halt a little more than a hundred yards from the ziggurat's base. Lara felt a little knot of anxiety coil in her stomach as their escorts shifted into a loose circle around the employees, weapons pointed in their direction. Hiding the movement behind another employee's shoulder, she unfastened the buckles to the flap of her pack, readying herself.

They stood like that, nervously shuffling in the circle like penned cattle being readied for the butcher, under the guards' watchful gaze for a half-hour. The sun sank lower in the sky behind them, becoming a fat, flaming ball of vivid oranges and reds hanging just over the horizon.

Without warning, a bright spear of ruby red light shot out from the temple atop the ziggurat, radiating straight towards the sun. There was a collective gasp of surprise from the group as Lara squinted up at the beam, watching as it seemed to merge with the dangling globe of the sun as it continued its journey towards the horizon.

Then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, the beam winked out, as if a light switch had been flicked in the temple. 

Lara felt a hand on her shoulder and turned, both relieved and annoyed to see Nichole sidling up beside her. 

"What was that?" she asked. "Are they guiding the choppers in?"

"No," Lara replied. "I don't know what it is." Nichole frowned, looking worried.

A brief bit of movement at the top of the pyramid caught Lara's eye. Al-Khalilah, encircled by his four fellow Hand members and bull-like security chief, emerged from the temple, looking down on the group below. He was dressed in an elaborately embroidered linen robe, his face composed. The Eye of Hammurabi hung from a thin chain around his neck, its center jewel catching the fiery light of the sun, glittering like a burning ember. He stopped at the edge of the ziggurat, surveying the scene below him for a moment. A moment passed, and he led his group down the wide steps of the ziggurat's face, stopping half way to the bottom. His gaze caught the head commando's and he gave an almost imperceptible nod.

Lara realized his intentions an instant before the shooting started, dropping to the ground like dead weight as the first salvo of bullets tore into the crowd around her. A few of the employees had time to scream before the commandos cut them down, and Lara felt her stomach clench at the sound. Lying motionless on the ground, she could heard a shriek just above her, and then a dull, telling thump a foot to her right: the unmistakable sound of a corpse hitting the ground. Peering through slitted eyes, Lara found herself staring into Nichole's empty eyes, a tiny trickle of blood running from the woman's mouth to pool on the sand. Lara had seen death before—far too many times, certainly—but she still had to grit her teeth, quelling the urge to both grab the UMP and kill the commandos and vomit at the sound of the massacre going on around her.

A minute passed before the commandos were satisfied they had killed everyone, a last harsh burst from an M16 cutting through the air before silence settled over the area. Lara lay absolutely still, peering around Nichole's body at al-Khalilah, who was standing almost smugly over the bullet-riddled bodies of the four Hand members.

Flinging his hands into the air, al-Khalilah tossed his head back, staring intently at the darkening sky as he began to speak. Lara recognized a few words of the ancient Babylonian, but was at a loss for their translation. 

Around her, the commandos had turned to face their employer, their attention diverted from the bodies on the ground. Lara seized the opportunity, inching her hand into her pack. Her fingers brushed against the Uzi and she drew it out, millimeter by millimeter as al-Khalilah continued to chant. The red gem in the Eye glowed brighter, shining like a beacon.

Holding the freed Uzi out of sight between her side and Nichole's body, Lara zeroed in on the gemstone, every muscle in her body coiled, ready to jump up and flee as soon as she sent a stream of lead through the Eye and al-Khalilah's heart. In front of her, the power-mad man finished his chant with a flourish and Lara's finger began tightening on the trigger.

She froze as a nearby movement caught her eye. Beside her, the pool of blood that had puddled around Nichole was moving, undulating like a serpent before seeping into the ground as if burrowing into the earth. Nothing happened for a moment, and then the sand began to shift, fluidly coiling up from the ground. It moved slowly at first, but congealed with increasing speed, taking shape before her eyes. It twisted and writhed with a hissing sound, small sandstorms in a familiar shape.

Lara could see the guards look noticeably worried as the sandstorms coalesced into the recognizable shape of human beings. Dozens upon dozens of the sand wraiths stood over the bullet-riddled bodies of the TMK employees, hissing from the unseen wind within them. Lara could hear one standing to her right, close enough that she could feel errant grains of sand flying off of it, stinging her exposed skin. The sand grains were whirling so fast within the wraiths, she knew that if she were to touch it, it would scour the flesh off her hand in an instant.

One of the guards was not so observant. He panicked at the sight of the wraiths, loosing a stream of rifle fire into the closest one with a fearful scream. The wraith was on him in a few seconds, sandy legs whirling as it sprinted over, enveloping the guard. A strangled shriek of pain erupted from the cloud of swirling sand before it moved on, leaving a pile of clean bones behind. The wraith regained its shape, waiting patiently like a soldier at attention, facing al-Khalilah.

With a satisfied look on his face, al-Khalilah turned back to the temple, striding up the steps with his security chief in tow. With his back to her, Lara knew that she would never get a better opportunity to end this.

Eyeing both al-Khalilah and the wraiths around her, she held her breath, moving gingerly into a crouch. The wraiths seemed to take no notice of her, remaining motionless except for the swirling of sand. Her finger tightened on the Uzi's trigger, and her eyes narrowed ever so slightly, an instant from sending a stream of lead through al-Khalilah's back.

That was when her luck ran out. That was the only explanation Lara could think of why al-Khalilah's security chief, Faraq, turned around at that moment. A trained fighter, he did not freeze in surprise or hesitate. His pistol was in his hand in the blink of an eye, aiming unerringly at Lara's forehead.

"You!" he spat, his eyes narrowing in venomous recognition as his finger caressed the trigger.

A sly, cold grin touched the corners of Lara's mouth. "In the flesh," she said, her aim unwavering, adding tension to the impasse.

For the first time, al-Khalilah's air of cool superiority cracked, a look of surprise leaching onto his features. "What is happening?"

"It seems as if our thief was not killed at Amiet as I had thought. Miss Cohen, wasn't it?" His false politeness was as inviting as an arctic snowstorm.

"Cohen? Collins?" al-Khalilah mused, peering at Lara closely before drawing back, recovering his superior look. "Perhaps you'd like to tell us your real name before we kill you?"

Lara's only reply was the Uzi, chattering as it stitched a line of crimson across Faraq's chest before he could fire. He crumpled backwards, a pair of rounds shredding through is heart, the venomous look frozen on his face as he died. 

Echoing the Uzi's report, the wraiths turned to face Lara in sync, shrieking like demons just before they broke into a sprint directly for her. The human guards all raised their weapons, firing past and through the wraiths at her; their quick aim was too hasty to be accurate, and they swung wide. 

She fired into the whirling wall of ghostly soldiers, but the bursts of lead had no effect, sand closing the holes soon after they appeared in the maelstrom. The Uzi burned through the ammo, and she went through an entire clip, with the same results. The wraiths kept coming at a sprint, the closest within ten feet of her, arms outstretched in anticipation of receiving her into its deadly embrace as she loaded her second clip.

Sucking in a deep breath, Lara held her fire, waiting until the wraith was almost upon her. Sand from it was beginning to sting her face when she leapt into the air, doing a forward flip over the wraith's head, firing the Uzi into it as she went.

While her rounds had no effect on the creature, it was momentarily confused by her move, buying her a few seconds to put some space between herself and the wave of wraiths. She could hear screaming as she moved; the wraiths weren't stopping for any guards who stood in their way, stripping off their flesh as they shrieked by. Lara didn't mind that at all, gunning down a guard trying to attack her from behind with the last few rounds from the Uzi's clip. She quickly slammed her last magazine in, just in time to drop another guard before he could react to his partner's death.

She spun around to face the wraiths, which were screaming behind her with renewed intensity. She fired, again, into the approaching ranks, but the bullets didn't even slow them down. She could only watch as the lead created tiny holes, which were smoothed over a few seconds later. But not before a spray of sand leaked out like arterial blood, a slash appearing like a wound.

Seeing that, Lara was struck by a sudden idea. Her right hand delved into her pack, her left holding the Uzi and firing at guards as they appeared, running backwards the whole time. A second later she found what she was looking for, pulling the length of climbing rope from her pack. Wrapping one end of the rope around her right wrist, she started swinging the rope like a lariat, whirling it so fast it sang as it cut through the air. The Uzi was never silent, expending its last few rounds into a commando making a beeline for her. 

Tossing the now-useless Uzi to the ground, Lara swung the rope with both hands, gritting her teeth just before she sprinted towards the approaching wraiths, yelling fiercely as she whirled the rope in front of her, meeting them head on.

The whirling rope had the effect of a razor-sharp sword as soon as it touched the advancing wall of whirling sand. The wraiths in front of Lara howled as the rope sliced into them, neatly cleaving through them. Three wraiths in front of her went down in one swing, screaming as they collapsed into a pile of sand and dust.

The other wraiths around her didn't seem to notice their companions' demises. While the first few in front of her had perished in Lara's charge, the rest had enveloped her like a river around a protruding boulder. She whirled and spun, swinging the rope tirelessly into a wall of shrieking sand that surrounded her, occasionally feeding out more rope when the end was scoured away. Lara made quick work of a pair of creatures in front of her, but the ones behind her advanced, brushing up against her and scouring off a small strip of her shirt and top layer of skin. She spiraled to defend herself, yet sand stung her back: the noose was quickly tightening around her. 

Lara wasn't even about to give up the fight. Whirling the rope even faster, she pressed forward in an effort to cleave a path through the wraiths. Her maneuver began to work and she took a few steps forward, but wraiths still pressed all around her. Her ears filled with the sound of screaming, stray grains of sand clogging the air as her arms began burning from the effort of swinging the rope.

Then, just as suddenly as they had appeared, the wraiths seemed to melt, collapsing into small heaps of dust on the ground. Behind her, someone chuckled.

Spinning on her heel, Lara faced the opposite direction, the ragged end of the rope slapping against her boot as she brought it to a halt. Her fight against he wraiths had taken her towards the ziggurat, she stood about fifteen feet from where al-Khalilah stood on the stone steps, smiling coldly at her. She immediately noticed the .50 caliber Desert Eagle in his right hand, pointed straight at her chest. At this range, that big a round would rip a pretty sizeable hole through a few vital organs—certainly not an appealing fate.

He bent his head in the briefest show of a mock bow. "Very good; I am impressed." He took a step towards Lara, who watched him warily, ready to spring. "I'll have you know, I'm a very forgiving man. I can look past your earlier threat and renew my offer. Immortality, Miss Collins—or whatever your name is—can be yours. How can you doubt it with what you have just seen?" He smiled, but his eyes remained hard. 

Lara coiled up the rope in her hands. "Sounds tempting," she lied, stalling for time, "What did I see?" Reaching behind her, she put the rope back into her pack. Her fingers closed around the grip of the UMP as she quickly tried to come up with a way to get it out of the pack and use it before al-Khalilah could fire. 

"The resurrection of the dead, Miss Collins. The bones of my ancient ancestors—long turned to dust—fed by blood and brought to life by my power." He gloated openly, looking both proud and menacing. Fortunately, that meant he was too preoccupied to wonder what Lara was doing with her hand behind her back.

"You forget yourself, servant."

Lara jerked around to see the source of the low, female voice. In front of her, al-Khalilah turned slightly pale, his jaw dropping open fractionally.

"Forgive me, Ishtar, my goddess," he moaned, dropping to his knees. His eyes were fastened on the woman, forgetting Lara completely.

Lara felt a ripple of shock travel through her as Nichole's body lifted itself from the ground as if she were alive. The dead woman's skin shifted and moved, her facial features reshaping themselves like clay under a sculptor's fingers, becoming delicately beautiful. Her skin darkened to deep bronze, and her hair and irises deepened into a near-black brown. Lara could see the play of toned muscles through tears in Nichole's blood-spattered clothing as she shifted. Stretching her now-lithe body, the woman took a few steps forward, moving in a sensuous—yet deadly—way. 

So this, Lara reflected, was Ishtar. The ambitious, cruel Babylonian goddess of love and war come to life. 

Ishtar's cold eyes flitted over Lara before resting on al-Khalilah. "It is easy to forget, when one has so much power, just where that power comes from, doesn't it, my servant?"

"Never, dear goddess," al-Khalilah said, eyes locked with the deity's as she continued walking towards him. Ishtar was even with Lara now, so close Lara could've reached over and touched her, yet the goddess continued to ignore her.

"Now why do I think you're lying?" she purred. "Hammurabi did not lie to us, serving us completely. An equal exchange for the blessings we gave him." She stopped two steps in front of al-Khalilah, looking down at him.

"And I will continue to serve you," he said, looking adoringly into her eyes, "bringing your empire back to glory. Everyone shall worship you and the others, my goddess, and those who do not will suffer for it. I ask only for your blessings so that I might serve you." 

Ishtar appraised al-Khalilah with a critical eye, totally silent. Behind her, Lara was tempted to try to sneak away, yet she still had a job to do: the Eye still glittered around al-Khalilah's neck, a source of terrible power. So she stood firm, muscles coiled as she slowly pulled out the UMP, careful not to draw any attention to herself. She needn't have worried, since Ishtar and al-Khalilah were so focused on each other they didn't even hear the click of the stock unfolding and locking into place.

Ishtar shifted, a grim smile appearing on her lips. "Stand, my servant."

Al-Khalilah's eyes brightened as he complied, squaring his shoulders proudly.

The goddess' grim expression didn't change as her right arm shot out, fingers closing around al-Khalilah's throat and squeezing with an iron grip. He gasped in surprise, his eyes widening as his hands flew up to his neck, trying to pry her hands loose. Ishtar only squeezed harder, and, with a bone-chilling sound, crushed al-Khalilah's windpipe. She let go, and he dropped to the ground, limp, rapidly turning blue. He convulsed violently a few seconds later, his body instinctively fighting for oxygen it could no longer get. He thrashed around for a few seconds more, Ishtar watching dispassionately all the while, before going still.

"Think I have forgotten about you?" Ishtar's back was to Lara, but it was obvious she was talking to her.

"No," Lara answered simply.

Ishtar crouched down over al-Khalilah's still form, removing the Eye from around his neck and holding it on the palm of her hand. She looked at it as she straightened before turning to look directly at Lara.

"This has held me hostage for much too long. A vile thing; to be at the beck and call of whichever of you worms hold this thing." Her eyes bored into Lara's. "You want this, don't you?" She held up the Eye, its center jewel glittering brightly in her hand. Ishtar's eyes, on the other hand, were as cold and dull as shale. Deadly eyes.

"Not in the slightest," Lara answered truthfully, tightening her fingers on the UMP's pistol grip. "I'd be just as happy if you destroyed it and went back to where you came from."

The goddess' lips quirked upwards just barely. "You are an admirable warrior, but not very respectful. Still, you will get half of your wish."

The Eye began to glow in Ishtar's hand. Within moments the metal was glowing white-hot, the cuneiform writing on its surface blurring as the gold began to melt. Ishtar watched as the metal melted down to a glowing pool in her cupped hand, the chips of gems glittering as they swirled around the red center jewel. Ishtar heated it still further and, incredibly, a column of flame leapt from her palm, incinerating every last bit of the Eye of Hammurabi in the blink of an eye. 

Her fingers closed over her empty hand in a fist. "But I will not go back to where I came from, not when such tremendous possibilities exist here. A physical empire, worthy of my ambition." She clenched her fist. "I will not let another year, much less three thousand, pass while my name lies, forgotten."

Lara hefted the UMP, pointing it firmly at Ishtar's chest. It looked horribly pitiful considering what she was facing, but not only was it all she had, she was hoping Ishtar's inhabited body—mortal flesh that it once was—would be unable to survive a stream of .45 caliber bullets.

"I'm not going to let you do that." She narrowed her eyes.

Ishtar laughed, a chillingly melodious sound. "Admirable, but inadequate."

The air fairly crackled with energy as mayhem erupted.

Lara immediately went into motion, loosing a string of bullets from the UMP as she flung herself to the side, narrowly avoiding a sizzling bolt of energy that shot from Ishtar's hand. Lara was back on her feet in a second, rapidly stepping backwards, trying to get some distance between herself and the goddess as she fired.

The slugs slammed into Ishtar, jolting her briefly from the force of the impact, but the goddess didn't even slow. Lara felt her heart sink as the bullet wounds disappeared from sight. Ishtar laughed cruelly, sending out another bolt from her hand.

Lara rolled to the side, feeling the painful heat from the bolt on her face. She kept firing short bursts into the woman, hoping that they'd find some way to damage the goddess. She wracked her brain for any sort of idea on how to kill this woman, but came up empty. She pulled the trigger again, and the UMP spat out its last three bullets with the sound of a chain dragging over the bed of a pickup truck. She ejected the empty clip into the sand at her feet, clicking a fresh one into place before continuing to fire.

Ishtar frowned as Lara dodged another of her energy bolts, jerking slightly from the impact of Lara's renewed assault. With the blink of an eye, two shapes rose from the sand into her hands. With a flash of light and heat, the sand melted and fused, forming two deadly glass swords. With a wry grin, Ishtar advanced rapidly, closing the distance between herself and Lara, whirling the swords expertly. Bullets cracked against the thick glass, but not event the slightest chip appeared in their surfaces. Leaping forward, she nicked Lara's upper arm, just before the tomb raider could twist out of the way, putting some distance between them with a backwards leap. 

Lara gritted her teeth in frustration, feeling the dull pain from the shallow gash over her bicep, blood trickling down her arm. There was no way she could stop Ishtar like this; she just wasn't doing enough damage. Perhaps, with high explosives, she might, but—

The thought struck Lara's mind like lightning, burning its importance into her brain. Firing the last of the clip at Ishtar, she whirled around, aiming for the tent encampment and breaking into a headlong sprint.

Thinking that Lara was turning tail in fear, Ishtar laughed, whipping her swords through the air. She, too, broke into a sprint, keeping pace behind Lara, waiting to attack once her prey had run herself into the ground. 

Lara reached the tents a little more than a minute later. Delving into the narrow gaps between tents, she twisted and turned around corners, trying to put some more space between herself and Ishtar, making her way into the center of the encampment.

She'd managed to get out of Ishtar's sight when the security tent came into view, straight in front of Lara. Behind her, she could hear the goddess slashing at the tents as she drew closer, pulling them down with a clatter of poles.

"I know where you are, wretch! Come, stop hiding and face your death!"

Lara ignored the threat, fairly diving into the security tent and skidding to a halt in the weapons container. She scooped a LAW rocket launcher out of its crate with one hand, slinging it across her shoulders. She whirled around, springing out of the container. Two steps away from getting out of the tent, there was a tearing sound to Lara's right as Ishtar's blades cut through the canvas like butter and she leapt inside the tent. Shrieking like a demon, she sprang forward, bringing a sword down in a powerful arc, ready to cleave Lara's skull.

Quick reflexes were the only thing that saved Lara as she instinctively held the UMP up, braced in both hands and held out above her, perpendicular to the sword's path. The glass blade smashed into the side of the assault rifle, burying itself halfway through the fiber-reinforced plastic upper receiver and bending the barrel a few millimeters.

The two women stayed like that, locked together, pressing against each other with all their might as they glared at each other. Ishtar's face curled into a snarl, trying to force the sword through the UMP and into Lara's face.

Lara moved like a flash. Pushing against the UMP, she slid forward along the wooden floor, letting go of the damaged weapon just before she hit Ishtar's shins. The sudden absence of an opposing force, combined with Lara's modified tackle, made her lose her balance and fall forward, caught off guard. The sword slammed into the floor, slicing the UMP in two before sticking into the floorboards; Lara had to roll to the side to avoid being stabbed by the other sword as Ishtar brought it down to steady herself.

Using the goddess' predicament to her advantage, Lara sprinted out of the half-collapsed tent while Ishtar struggled to free the swords. She stopped about fifty feet from the tent before turning around. Her lips were set in a serious line as she set the LAW on her right shoulder, squinting down the middle of the tube.

In front of her, Ishtar had pulled herself loose. Turning to face Lara, she grinned at the sight of the rocket aimed straight for her, the sword in her left hand whirling like a windmill. She laughed again, confident in her immortality as she ran at Lara.

Aiming for the goddess' feet, Lara fired. 

Ordinarily used to kill tanks, the LAW made a tremendous explosion, throwing up plumes of dirt, dust, and flame. The concussive blast slammed into Lara, who had known that she was far too close to her target, knocking her onto the ground so hard she lost her breath. She lay there, gasping for air as rocks and debris rained down on her. A minute later, an odd, dull-sounding thump got her attention and she peered to her left through slitted eyelids, trying to take measured breaths.

A forearm, severed just below the elbow joint tilted over onto its side, bloodless knuckles closed around a large, glass sword.

Ignoring the twinges of pain in her back, Lara gradually got to her feet, examining the smoking shambles of the security tent. Her eyes watered as she poked through the debris, but she had to be sure…

She smiled in grim satisfaction when she flipped over a large scrap of canvas, coming across what was left of the manifestation of Ishtar. Lara didn't feel any sort of relief or pride at the sight, just the composed knowledge that everything was over.

Well, almost over.

Moving stiffly, she rummaged around in the singed weapons container. The metal walls had protected a portion of its contents from the blast, and Lara quickly found what she was looking for. Loading a half-dozen duffel bags onto a dusty Humvee she'd found parked near the communications tent, she drove back to the ziggurat. The heat from the dying sun, the sudden fatigue that hit her, and the pain from her arm combined for a formidable test of her willpower, but she focused on her task, ignoring them all.

An hour and a half later Lara was spooling up the rotors to al-Khalilah's Bell 430, making a quick survey of the fuel gauges before lifting off. She took off into the darkening sky, aiming the chopper straight for Saudi Arabia. Waiting until she'd put a safe distance between herself and the ziggurat, she pushed a small button on a radio detonator resting on her lap.

A few miles behind her, there was a dull rumble from deep within the ziggurat. The step-pyramid trembled as the strategically placed blocks of C4 detonated in series, blowing out the stone structure's guts. Slowly, the ominous pyramid imploded, heavy stone blocks shattering and collapsing in a spectacularly earth-shaking rumble. Within two minutes, all that remained of Omar al-Khalilah's dream of power and immortality was a large pile of rubble in the Iranian desert.

In the helicopter, Lara smiled to herself, pushing the throttles to the stops.

~~~~~

Alyson Stratmann sighed, content, as she walked up to the black Triumph Sprint RS motorcycle waiting on the gravel drive in front of Croft Manor's front door.

"It's not what you had before, but I think you'll be much more impressed," Lara Croft said, calmly eyeing the young woman standing to her left.

"You're giving it to me?" It was the third time Lara had seen the sarcastic hacker look genuinely surprised. The first had been when Lara had walked authoritatively into Alyson's cell, flashing a CIA badge and authorization and making the agents there break into a sweat until the prisoner had been released into her custody for extradition. The second had come when they'd gotten away from the building unchallenged, driving right through the front gate to a hospital, where Alyson had been checked in under an assumed name for immediate surgery. Lara had kept an annoyingly close eye on her those first few days before taking her to Croft Manor until Alyson got off the crutches.

And now this. Alyson shook her head slightly, glancing quizzically at Lara. "I can't take this; I didn't even do anything."

"But you didn't tell them where I was, giving me time to do what I had to." Lara's voice was even, serious.

"And what was that?" Alyson asked, skeptical. 

Bryce snorted behind them, where he had been listening and leaning against the doorjamb, muttering something about saving the world. Alyson ignored him, looking puzzled as a devilish smirk appeared on Lara's face.

"I think I've caused a bit of a reorganization within the upper levels of TMK Engineering's management." The smirk faded from view and she looked at Alyson, serious again. "Which means that I don't think you'll have to worry about them tracking you ever again."

"How'd you manage _that_?"

Another derisive snort from Bryce, earning him a half-hearted glare from Alyson. 

"I'm very persuasive," Lara replied cryptically.

Realizing that she wasn't going to get any sort of a detailed answer, Alyson grinned, slipping onto the motorbike and fastening her new helmet over her head before starting the engine.

"Goodbye, Lady Croft, and thank you," Alyson said, sincerely. 

Bryce walked down the steps. "So what're you goin' to do now?'

Alyson's cryptic grin matched Lara's. "I don't know; maybe take up travel writing." Revving the engine, she pulled away from the other two with an acknowledging nod of her head, disappearing down the drive.

"What'd she mean by that?" Bryce asked quizzically.

"A little inside joke," Lara replied.

"Ah." Bryce looked even more confused.

Lara turned around as Hillary stepped through the front door, offering up a cordless phone. "An urgent call for you, Lady Croft. A Professor Gonzalez from the Museum would like your input on a recent discovery in Nicaragua. He said it was quite unusual."

__

Unusual, Lara echoed inwardly. For a moment she was beginning to get bored—three whole weeks at the Manor, without bullets, spirits, or hired commandos to worry about was a rare experience for her these days. 

Holding the phone to her ear, Lara followed Bryce into her home, closing it behind her, already listing what she'd need to take with her to the Yucatan site.

~~~~~

****


End file.
